During the past few months I’ve been enjoying many a pleasant hour traveling U.S. 30 between Grand Island, Nebr. and Pine Bluffs, Wyo. As many readers of this website know, this highway parallels The Overland Route, and it’s not uncommon to see 60-to-70 freight trains, nearly all of which are moving in the opposite direction that I’m driving.
Among the mixed-merchandise trains and “coal bucket sets,” Denver & Rio Grande Western open-top hoppers are pretty common, but whatever Rio Grande boxcars went into the 1996 U.P. merger have all but disappeared.
Yes, it’s possible to see the Rio Grande speed lettering applied to an occasional non-DF 50-footer, but that car more than likely is carrying CHTT (Chicago Heights Terminal Transfer) reporting marks. Even more likely is finding a dark brown boxcar with both the speed lettering painted out and the CHTT reporting mark applied. But finding a Rio Grande boxcar carrying DRGW reporting marks is nearly impossible.
Golden West Service happened. From my observations, it appears that a majority of DRGW’s RBLs went into the GWS program. Look for GVSR 700000 and GVSR 100000 series boxcars. Also, many of DRGW’s boxcars are dirty and it is not easy to read any of the lettering on them.
Many of DRGW’s RBLs that were leased from Fruit Growers Express now carry CHTT reporting marks.
On the east side of Kearney,just leaving town on US30,going to Cabelas,is a orange & silver DRG&W box car,that has been there for at least the last 2 years.
For years on the east side of Kearney, Nebr. where North Railroad Ave. intersects with U.S. 30 were four classic, nearly zero graffiti defaced, 50-ft. boxcars. Three of these cars carried Rio Grande reporting marks: one was solid orange with black speed lettering; another was a cushioned drawbar car painted in passenger colors, i.e., orange-over-silver with black speed lettering; and a third was dark mineral red with white speed lettering. The fourth boxcar was a tired looking MoPac number painted dark mineral red with a “Missouri Pacific Lines” buzzsaw herald.
For the Rio Grande cars, the letters portion of the reporting marks suggested maintenance of way or store department assigned service. Likewise for the number applied to the MoPac car. Judging by the rust on the wheels, the four cars looked to have been there for a very long time.
Yesterday, while driving past this same intersection, I discovered that these four cars have disappeared. If anyone reading this space captured them on film, you’re lucky! They were very rare car types to see in this day and age!
I still see D&RGW beer type boxcars fairly regularly although most of them are rather weathered and hard to read the lettering. This is on trains going north and south through Eugene, OR.
At the time of the merger, there weren’t that many plain D&RGW box cars in existence–most of the box-type cars were insulated cars, and a lot of those went to the GVSR 100000 series (100-ton cars) and 700000 series (70-ton cars). They were fully repainted and relettered to the “Golden West Service” paint scheme.
The newest series of D&RGW box cars that I’m aware of were the 40000-series double-door cars with “Wood-Packer” markings. These were apparently returned to their lessor by UP, as I’ve seen some that have gone to other reporting marks, such as TFM.
A lot of the Golden West cars have recently been restored to their old D&RGW numbers. Needless to say, they won’t be restored to their original paint.
D&RGW Boxcars have been used in different service patterns in the past 3 years. The D&RGW Boxcars occasionally show up on the CN-GTW mainline in Michigan.
The same thing can be said about the new assignments of the D&RGW Covered Hopper fleet. In the past few years they have become less frequent on the CN-GTW mainline.
Someone at the Union Pacific has completely changed the way cars are utilized. Nothing is the same. Who did it?
I’m sure you’re right–but neither of these cars had been repainted very recently, so they’ve been in this service for a long time before the merger shifted their location. More-recently-painted cars would have the “Grande” larger than the “Rio”, with “The Action Road” (all in black on a slightly darker orange).
Freight Cars Journal did one, and possibly two, exhaustive studies of D&RGW freight cars and their paint schemes, unfortunately dating to the days before D&RGW bought the SP (Ha! I got it right!).