A co-worker of mine mentioned that he had seen a train come through town yesterday made up of “rusty, ratty, falling apart train cars” (his words). He wondered if the "junkyard on wheels was headed to the nearby repair shop, Midwest Railcar Repair, at Corson, S.D… I’ve never seen a dedicated train of bad order cars, so maybe it wasn’t as bad as he envisioned it.
I know that train crews and yard cars bad order cars all the time; and that a lot of them are repaired in the nearest RIP track at a yard. If a car is in need of major repair, how does the railroad get it to a repair shop?
Dependig on how old or how much repair is needed ,if the car dept at the yard cant fix it, its hauled on a flat car to the nearest scrapper…A lot of times they are cut up if they cant be put back on the track at derailments and hauled off by truck…Ive never seen a car cut up for scrap in any yard…
They do cut up the cars in the yard here that have been wrecked past the point of fixing.
When one gets put on a flat car (which is called a hospital car) its usually getting moved to a shop or to the owner, which is called home shop. Ever saw those green stickers that said that, they may not do it any more, been awhile since ive saw one also. If its gonna get cut up, unless its a special tank that needs more work done on it (Drained / Cleaned), they wont bother moving it they will cut her right there.
UPRR,
I did not know RR cut up cars in the yard…Thanks for the info…
I dunno - I’ve seen a few regular trains that might fit that description, especially to someone who may think everything on the railroad is shiny and new…
They do occassionally move solid blocks of cars to Repair shops usually program work , but Cars do cut up in the yard sometimes .I watched CSX cut up several Cabooses in the early 90’s at Wansford yard , in Evansville , IN .
Who makes the call on whether a car is repairable or not?