I saw these in the middle of CP’s 296’s train on 4/5/12 in Pleasant Prairie. Had to do a ‘grab’ shot, as these were deep in the train and I didn’t see them until it was almost too late. The cars are numbered IANR 7750 & 7704.
Those certainly look like old CNW suburban coaches. I wonder if they are some of those I’ve seen just south of WSOR’s Horicon yard; and if so, were they repainted at WSOR?
And what and where is the “Hawkeye Express” run?
Can’t help you except with the info that the Hawkeye Express shuttles University of Iowa football fans between Coralville, Ia., where they park their cars, to the old Rock Island (now Iowa Interstate) siding beside Kinnick Stadium in Iowa City.
The run has used different equipment over the years, including at one time that belonging to the Ski Train (before it was needed back home in Denver). Presumably, this newer, dedicated, equipment is also for hire in the off-season.
I saw those two cars moving Friday morning in the middle of a WB freight on the MD-West line (ex-MILW, now ICE).
This is two sightings now of this equipment mid-train. I thought railroads, when they had to move passenger cars in freight service, tried to keep them upfront, because of less slack action there. (Yes, I realize there are no passengers aboard!) That’s the way BNSF always seems to handle them through Bismarck, anyway.
BTW, those two coaches, which are probably 40-50 years old, looked and sounded (silent) great!!
I also would think that these cars should be placed either at the very front or rear of the train. But up front, they would not only be subjected to the buff forces of an entire train’s worth of slack running in, but also the draft forces of having possibly 10K tons on the drawbar. Additionally, I would think the railroads would want to keep watch on them to prevent vandalism.
Whenever I had to handle passenger cars, the paperwork always called for them to be on the rear (or next to the rear car - sometimes you aren’t able to hang one of our EOTs on a these cars.
The paperwork also had stipulations about not coupling up to them with certain locomotives (GE widebodies I think…) because the ditchlights can be smashed out. [oops]
It seems like most times that I’ve seen passenger/commuter cars in our manifests, they’ve been about the middle of the train. There are a few times when I’ve seen some on the rear or up front. The last time I saw them put them on the tail end, they were a set of those Kawasaki cars coming out of Lincoln going to Chicago and beyond. They now run them in special trains of two sets of two semi-permanently coupled cars.
The ones up front usually have had riders with them. Either monitoring something or in transit to their next assignment.
The Hawkeye Express cars is owned by the Iowa Northern (why they have IANR marks) and they also have a F40 painted and lettered (except for IANR initials for identification) in a Rock Island passenger scheme. with the number that would’ve been the next RI psgr F-7A. I don’t know if they lease them out, but they do use them for public relations at on-line community celebrations, etc.
I think I’ve heard that they were exCNW cars. I was up in Manly last week and saw two or three in their yard. Along with three GP-7 units that are going to be restored. Two will restored to RI schemes (still to be determined) and one restored to it’s CNW days for display at Manly. Both the museum at Manly and the Hawkeye Express are the brainchild of IANR’s Dan Sabin.
Jeff
I would say, just based on those 7700-series numbers, that they’re ex-Metra cars (same numbers), which have CNW ancestry. Their newest cars were built in 1970, IIRC (just before I hired out).
They were repainted in Horicon by WSOR. I don’t think they came out of the Horicon storage line, they came up on their own.
When the train left Horicon, they were on the head end. Lots of things these can’t be coupled to: switch engines (switcher pin lifters and diaphragms interfere), tank cars, other cars with double-shelf couplers. The handbrake isn’t very accessible on these, so the other cars nearby might be used for that purpose.