In my travels I sometime pass an industrial siding where there are about 30 closed gondolas which have not been moved in the past year (at least). They appear to be all private owners such as CTTPX, AMCX, and ELTX. Apparently they are not earning revenues for their owners.
Is there a central agency where I could report the location of these possilby lost cars?
Are there any rewards availible for locating them?
There not lost or abandoned, there likey stored. The railroad knows they are there.
You wanna talk about “lost” gondolas, the pair of CR gondolas sitting in the woods on the old L&HR trackage in bevadere, they were “forgotten” there when CR tore up the L&HR between Bevadere and Sparta Jct. There they sit, surrounded by trees and greenery, I believe one is on the ground too.
Quote by: Isroza
1-800-GONDOLA ??
Sorry, I couldn’t resist.
CC
Actually, Isroza, those are covered hoppers (based on the reporting marks), used for plastics transport. They may be loaded, awaiting customers (they even have special “storage-in-transit” yards for such cars). Ed Blysard, a railroader in the Houston area, will know more about this–he’s usually in the thick of it.
As for rewards for lost cars, it’s not beyond the realm of possibility. Union Pacific runs a weekly list of lost cars (usually about ten cars or so–some have been lost for quite a while!) for its employees to look for; anyone who finds them and calls the number with information on them will get a box of steaks (so you take a stake in accurate car reporting). I found one once–took a $50 gift certificate in lieu of steaks (freezer was full at the time). Anyway, I don’t know if UP or other railroads post such info on their public web sites. I remember many years ago when B&O went public with an express car they couldn’t find–and I believe it was finally found by a fan.
Wouldn’t ALL cars be included, not just gons??? I wonder if anyone has lost a locomotive? or an entire train?? Hmmmm, sounds like the start of a new urban legend.
Yes, there have been locomotives on the UP “Most Wanted” list. A few years back an SD40-2 was missing for a while. I think that one turned out to be an accounting error (renumbered, retired, or something) rather than actually lost.
According to Beyond the Fringe (rest their souls), the Brits “Mislaid a small [train] in the winter of the big snows”. [;)]
Where is Bevadere? Not listed in my Microsoft Streets and Trips.
CSX does it all the time LOL. This does give me ideas. If my railroad did this I would never have to buy steak again.[C=:-)]
Years ago there was a shortline that would get cars from PC. When empty they ran them to their shop and repainted them. then they sent them on their way. I assume PC was informed they were returned and nobody checked for a long time if they were or not. As I recall something like 200 cars were missing. That is when PC noticed that every car had been shipped to the short line before disappearing. DUH!
As I recollect, some mid-level PC official was involved with the scheme and was prosecuted for Grand Theft and conspiracy. Incident highlighted the lack of proper controls that PC had on their operation.
LaSalle & Bureau County RR
We have a mile long string of RBOX boxvcars sitting on the siding track of the CSX branch just each of Gettysburg, PA. They have been sitting there for about a year now. When they are needed they will be pulled out for use. Untill then they justslowly rust away.
Some years ago, I met a contractor on a jobsite and found that he was a railfan. I am not sure if he was entirely truthful though. According to him, his brother worked for Union Pacific and his job was to locate lost cars. He said that the brother had just gotten a big bonus because he had found a number of cars lost since the 1950s. These cars, autoracks with 1956 cars still on board had been shoved into an unused tunnel and then forgotten until brother came snooping. I figured that he had been blowing smoke but who knows…
“ndbprr” has the story exactly backwards. Penn Central, not a shortline, was stealing good equipment - boxcars as I recall - painting them “New York Central green,” and stencilling them with PC reporting marks! I seem to recall too that most of that action was happening in central Illinois!
At one time during the 1970s and early '80s, Union Pacific kept its own car distributor in Philadelphia. His job was to make sure that U.P. equipment was promptly returned to either Kansas City or Council Bluffs - either as westbound loads or empties. Penn Central couldn’t afford to maintain its own equipment, so they were hording whatever good equipment they could find irrespective of car service rules. With this nefarious practice going on, Uncle Pete started to experience freight car shortages for its own customers, so the Company established this east coast car distributor position to keep an eye on things.
QUESTION: Does anyone suppose that PC may have been telling its connecting carriers
Another different version…
__*http://www.lakemirabel.com/Railroad/PennCentral1.html#BoxCars*__
"Anybody remember the story of the "lost PC box cars???
They were taking boxcars from large railroads, repainting them and assigning new numbers. They were presumably counting on the larger railroad losing track of their cars.
It all revolved around a little railroad called the Lasalle & Bureau County.
Penn Central was the unwitting source of most of these cars; they looked like old NYC 40-foot box cars, primarily. It took place in 1971. The whole episode didn’t cover much time, as far as I can tell, and the Equipment Registers I have from that era don’t seem to have anything.
The scheme seemed to revolve around a “repair shop” located on the LS&BC and owned by another, related corporation. This company contracted with PC to “rebuild” boxcars.
Once the cars arrived, a fair percentage of them were deemed to be “un-repairable”. PC was notified and the company offered to scrap the cars out for a fee. These “un-repairable” cars (they actually were quite servicable) were then hastily restenciled for LSBC and put back on the road, earning car-hire charges for the new owners.
The game was over when one of these cars was damaged and came to a PC shop for repair. The original car number was discovered stenciled on the underbody.
Oh yes … the La Salle and Bureau County’s nickname? LSBC = Let’s Steal Box Cars! "