I thought it might be fun to get some feedback on this.
Even though I model the modern era (mid 90s forward), I enjoy having a few old roadnames in my roster. Not too may, just a few to add a little variety. During the last operating session a few of us got talking about this with a member of our group who works in a rail yard. He has a lot of opportunity to catch some really old schemes and he was telling about some of them. He also had pictures of a few of them on his picture phone. It’s amazing how old some of these schemes are and the relatively good condition some of these cars are in.
I got to wondering how many of the visitors to this forum have seen cars recently in fallen flag schemes. It would be fun to hear about them.
It would also be interetsting to hear whether or not you run any fallen flags with your modern cars.
I run fallen flags (mostly Reading, EL, and D&H) with my modern stuff. Over the last week I’ve seen the following fallen flags coming thru Philly…
Maine Central box ars in Harvest Gold
Boston and Maine boxcars in McGinnis Blue
Frisco coal hoppers (albit with HMLX markings)
Soo Line boxcars.
Southern Pacific boxcars
UP “Automated Railway” boxcars (I know not a fallen flag, but still)
Chessie Cat covered hoppers
Western Pacific boxcars with the Square Feather logo.
So there are still a fare amount of fallen flags out there.
There are still gigantic fleets of cars roaming around in Rock Island bankruptcy blue, not to mention all the C&NW cars out there. IC, ICG and a few of the OLD IC cars are still around, and all those roads are now FF’s. Even the N&W is a FF, and there are still a lot of cars out there lettered for that road. And the Wisconsin Central is now a FF.
In July, I saw and photographed a GM&O covered grain hopper in Champaign, IL! A fellow foamer saw and photographed an ITC mill gon later in the day in Decatur. Both roads have been gone for more than 22 years.
I took a picture of this B&O covered hopper this past Sunday. It was in the middle of a CSX consist full of old Chessie System cars and other pre CSX cars. I was mystified, being as this is Norfolk Southern turf.
Seen 2 Detroit & Macinack boxes last month in Ottawa Ontario, If can remember correctly they were restenciled WCCL. As little as 2 months ago I know I saw a model of one on ebay and I want one to put on my modern layout.
Tracks Ahead did a great show last week on fallen flags and the companies that bought them out, It gave me GREAT insite on locos to run in a consist that you wouldn’t have thought of running together.[8D]
I see Reading hoppers all the time on the NS hauling roofing granules and in response to Orson Roy’s post I have seen a a Rock Island blue hopper with ICG marks!
I’ve seen EL hoppers in ballast service. Mainly out of Conway Yard outside Pittsburgh. Pretty cool to see any EL.
And there’s an old MDT reefer parked there, too. Looks like it’s used for storage.
I have found that being time specific doesn’t interest me, i’d rather model a specific location. I run anything with anything. I run a B&M 0-8-0 next to a Guilord (B&M’s successor) Geep
Chessie grain hoppers roll through Oxford almost every day. NYC gondolas loaded with scrap metal that looks in better condition than the cars. “Family Lines” boxcars. Some days I wonder if anything ever gets repainted or scraped. There is a lot of old rolling stock out there.
Technically, the D&H is not a fallen flag. The name is still in the corporate papers as much as the present owners (CP) would like to see it dissapear. It was part of the deal of the sale. It allows NYS to still boast that the D&H is the longest continually operating transportation company in the US.
There are still a few engines in D&H lightning stripe running the rails; 7303, 7304 and 7312. There are also plenty of freight cars running around with the D&H logo on them.
