CSX Donates Historic NYC Hopper Car

A former New York Central covered hopper car is being preserved by the Conrail Historical Society and a Connecticut railroad museum.

The Flexi-Flow hopper car was built by ACF Industries in 1966 as one of 220 such cars.

A Flexi-Flow hopper allowed easy unloading of the contents by applying air pressure inside of the car.

The cars were typically used to haul cement or other dry bulk goods and helped railroads regain business that had been lost to trucks.

The 46-foot car will be donated by CSX to the Conrail historical group and displayed at the Danbury Railway Museum.

The museum is seeking donations to help restore the car and repaint it in its previous Conrail livery.

W&LE No. 108 in Navarre

Wheeling & Lake Erie GP35-3 No. 108 has been around a long time. It was built for the Southern in December 1964 and came to the Wheeling in 1990 when the modern iteration of the company began operations.

A motive power roster online maintained by Chris Toth shows No. 108 still looks the way it does in the photograph above.

It is capable of remote control operation and has Alco-type B trucks.

No. 108 is shown here working in Navarre on Aug. 21, 2013.

Photograph by Robert Farkas

The Stories Behind Freight Cars

Some railfan photographers enjoy photographing freight cars although few of them make that their primary focus.

For the vast majority of railroad photographers, the motive power is the be all and end all of their hobby.

Yet I’ve sat through more than one railfan club program in which one or more audience members lamented not photographing a particular freight car at a given time and place.

Usually, what they failed to capture is a car from a fallen flag railroad.

That is the story behind the top image of a Delaware & Hudson boxcar photographed on June 10, 1978, in Massillon. The D&H is now a fallen flag.

The story behind the bottom photograph is different. This covered hopper was photographed in Akron on Jan. 26, 1980.

It got me to wondering he is or was Sid Richardson. He was Sid Williams Richardson, a Fort Worth, Texas, businessman, who lived between 1891 and 1959.

He made his fortune in the oil and carbon businesses. He was a philanthropist who founded what would become the Sid Richardson Museum, a collection of western art, particularly that of Frederic Remington and Charles M. Russell.

He also founded the Sid W. Richardson Foundation in 1947 and it continues to provide grants to organizations in the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex.

As for the company that bears Richardson’s name, it was acquired last year byTokai Carbon Company. A news release about the acquisition noted that Sid Richardson Carbon is the larges carbon black producer in the United States.

CN Buying New Hopper Cars

Canadian National plans to buy 1,000 high-cube grain hopper cars over the next two years.

The cars will have 5,431 cubic feet of capacity and replace aging low-capacity equipment used to haul annual crop yields

National Steel Car will build the hoppers at its plant in Hamilton, Ontario.

In an unrelated development, earlier this week Canadian lawmakers passed Bill C-49, the Transportation Modernization Act, which raises the ownership limit in CN to 25 percent from 15 percent.

The legislation also includes new rules governing rail shipping, including the creation of a “long-haul intershipping” system aimed at helping rail customers served by only one line.

Extreme Cost Cutting CSX Style

In the past year CSX has been known for its all-out efforts to cut costs in an effort to drive up profitability. Among other measures, thousands of employees have been let go, it is operating fewer and longer trains, and most hump yard operations have ended.

But perhaps this is cost cutting taken to an extreme. Notice that the CSX “baby buggy” herald is missing one of its brackets and two of it wheels.

This half herald was spotted on a covered hopper on a westbound grain train passing through Marion.

It’s probably an aberration and CSX has not to my knowledge decided to retool its logo. But, hey, anything to save a few bucks on paint, right?

Heritage Covered Hoppers?

We’ve all heard about heritage locomotives, particularly those that Norfolk Southern created to celebrate its 30th anniversary back in 2012.

If you pay attention as a train passes you at trackside, you might spot some freight cars in some semblance of their original livery.

It might be an outline of a former herald, e.g., Penn Central or Conrail, or it might be the faded markings of a one-time owner.

And then there is this covered hopper that can be described as heritage, BNSF style. One of its grain cars is shown in Cleveland with an added “Burlington Route” emblem on it.

Photograph by Roger Durfee

Winding Line of Covered Hopper Cars in Ohio

It is common to see photographs of trains winding around in mountainous areas, particularly in the Western United States.

But such views in Ohio are unusual because most railroad lines here are pretty much straight due to the flat terrain. So I was struck by the sight that I saw atop the reservoir in Wellington on Sunday.

A grain train with CSX motive power was parked on the connecting track between CSX and the Wheeling & Lake Erie. This track loops around the Lorain County Fairgrounds.

The grain train, which did not have a crew on board, was waiting to get onto CSX. In the image above, the view is looking northwestward.

The motive power is just out of sight to the right and the tail end of the train is visible in the distance.

This is the first time I’ve seen a grain train on this connecting track. I wonder if interchanging grain trains with CSX is a recent development for the W&LE.

Article and Photograph by Craig Sanders

Trip Down Memory Lane in Akron

Remember when . .  .

You and a railfan friend could park your car on the site of the removed East Voris Street crossing guard tower in downtown Akron?

Each new train was a surprise because you didn’t own a scanner and perhaps had no knowledge of scanners as well.

Three B&O “blues” were just another B&O lashup?

A C&O covered hopper wasn’t a fallen flag treasure?

There was a pole line on the east side of the tracks here where a Penn Central line, the B&O mainline, and the Erie Lackawanna mainline passed through this spot?

There was an EL Alco switcher switching EL’s McCoy Street Yard?

There was a McCoy Street Yard?

It is September 1972 and I am taking the photo while Akron Railroad Club member Mike Ondecker is writing down the information.

B&O Nos. 3516, 3713, and 6911 lead an eastbound freight through Akron. At the time I was shooting Agfachrome so I’m sorry but I can’t help the grain.

Article and Photograph by Robert Farkas

 

 

Waiting For The Harvest Season to Begin

A caboose and string of covered hopper cars wait at Jones Switch for the call to be pulled down to a nearby elevator to be filled with grain.

I don’t know who Jones was and why a switch on the old Peoria, Decatur & Evansville was named after him.

I just know that for as long as I can remember there has been a grain elevator southeast of my hometown of Mattoon, Ill., at a place called Jones Switch.

Today Interstate 57 goes practically over the top of Jones Switch. The PD&E, which was acquired by the Illinois Central Railroad early in the 20^th century is mostly gone east of Jones switch.

A portion of the PD&E remains in place from the Canadian National yard in Mattoon – what’s left of it anyway – out to the elevator at Jones Switch.

Traffic on this spur probably is sporadic. A week or more might go by without any trains moving over these tracks.

I left in Mattoon since 1983 and don’t get back there much so I don’t know how often that trains operate on this line.

I do know that the last two times that I saw Jones switch there was a string of covered hopper cars parked to the west and an IC caboose wearing the IC “death star” logo was being used as a shoving platform for CN crews backing the hoppers out to the elevator.

As far as I know, the occasional move of covered hoppers is the only traffic still left on this segment of the old PD&E.

There are countless locations such as Jones Switch scattered all over America. A branch line or a portion of a branch line remains in place to serve a particular customer or two that needs rail service.

The distance between the Mattoon yard and Jones Switch is a couple miles or so and the track is not in the best condition.

I have to wonder how much longer that CN will agree to move covered hoppers over this stretch without some track rehabilitation.

Whatever the case, I made it a point to visit Jones Switch last month during a visit back to Mattoon this past August  to do some railfanning of the former IC.

The caboose I had seen two years earlier on these tracks was there along with a string of covered hoppers. The elevator owns or leases a geep painted solid blue that has had its markings and numbers removed.

The diesel was silent and I didn’t observe any activity at the grain elevator.

The only sounds came from traffic rushing by on the interstate and the wind rustling the corn plants next to the tracks. Some of that grain might move over these very tracks in a couple more months.

But the corn was still quite green and would need more than a month to mature and be ready for harvest.

So everything waits for its time. The caboose, the covered hoppers and the blue geep will soon enough have work to do.

Article and Photographs by Craig Sanders

Rust is threatening to overcome the IC’s gray paint.

Some of the corn growing next to the tracks may well journey to market over those tracks and maybe even in these cars.

CN train crews are not allowed to go all the way to Jones’ switch.

The heritage of this locomotive is a mystery, what with its markings and numbers having been removed.

What tales could this geep tell of places its been and worked?

The elevator at Jones Switch looms in the background over Interstate 57. These tracks once went all the way to Evansville, Ind.

Need a used tractor? It still has lots of life left in it.

Still Rockin’ After All These Years

The Rock Island logo is badly fading, but still visible on this covered hopper in Kent. The car now carries WE reporting marks.

The Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific Railroad ceased operations on March 31, 1980, but every once in a while you can still spot RI rolling stock. Such was the case on Sunday when I captured two ex-RI covered hoppers in Kent, Ohio.

The two cars were part of a string of hoppers at the Star of the West grain elevator that sits alongside the former Erie Railroad mainline. The ex-Erie tracks are now operated by the Akron Barberton Cluster Railway and the grain facility has a trackmobile to shuffle cars around. The ex-RI cars now carry Wheeling & Lake Erie reporting marks.

Photographs by Craig Sanders

The RI logo on this car has pretty much survived but the blue paint and the “The Rock” slogan are rapidly fading away.

An eastbound CSX manifest freight passes on the ex-Baltimore & Ohio line along the Cuyahoga River with a covered hopper in tow that is of more recent vintage.