Halliburton Services Freight Car

This car was in Wasco, CA on BNSF (between Bakersfield and Fresno) on 8/14/10. I don’t recall ever seeing a car like this; evidently this carries “drilling mud” for oil wells?

30-years ago, those Halliburton “barrels-on-a-flatcar” could be seen almost daily along the Colorado & Southern Railway as well as the Burlington Northern in central Wyoming.

Last count, there were 41 of these cars left (perhaps 75 originally). I have a feeling that some of them are getting pretty close to their age limit.

The Haliburton Car brought back memories of living in the Tulsa area and seeing also orange and white boxcars that belonged to ‘Dresser Industries.’ I think they loaded bags of oil well additives (sacked cement and bags of drilling mud additives) they seemed to have quite a few of them.

During the same time Haliburton seemed to have cars in almost every train out there. As Carl said I’d guess they are all gone now or just about gone for age restrictions(?).

You’re right, Sam–those NIRX reefers lettered for Dresser Magcobar or Dresser Minerals are all gone. North American Car used to have a distinctive fleet of insulated box cars (RBLs–actually reefers) in a variety of paint schemes, and I can’t think of any that are in revenue service. The last ones may have been the blue Quaker Oats cars (QOCX), which later went to the DM&E. I’ll bet they’re gone, too.