Almost every picture of Montana Raillink’s ACF centerflow hoppers I’ve ever seen shows them with most of the blue MRL paint peeled off and revealing their earlier BN colors. These hoppers look more BN than MRl’s blue. The quality of those repaints was probably spotty at best. Probably didn’t take too long for the paint to start peel off either.
That stuff isn’t really peeling, in the way one thinks of coming off in pieces. It’s just being rubbed away, by things such as rain, dust, brakemen sneezing, etc.
(Don’t see many MRL covered hoppers around here, but have seen a goodly number of high-roof box cars suffering the same affliction.)
I thought the FRA was going to look into that.
They’ve been stalling since the phenomenon hasn’t caused a major derailment in quite a while…
They’re looking at the railroads individually–CSX first, MRL next.
should see some csx hoppers.they have marks from 4 different owners .can you tell who’s who’s?
stay safe
joe
Greetings,
From the looks of it, they appeared to have applied the MRL blue directly over the exsisting BN green. If the exsisting paint coat was already deteriorating, it will make the new topcoat not adhere and begin to peel. See this sometimes on aircraft that have been repainted. The most common problem is oxidation of the paint. This is what you see when you rub your hand over a painted surface and it comes away with a powdery residue on it. Some paint types seem to do this more readily than others. On our aircraft we have found it better to strip them down, apply primer, and then the topcoat; an expensive operation. Sometimes we get aircraft that have had a fluid leak that will contaminate the paint layers, this is usually from hydraulic fluid. In these cases, you have to completely remove the contaminated paint and make sure the surfaces are completely clean or the new paint will not adhere.
Gregory
maybe its from trying to wash off all of the graffetti?[:-^]
quite a few of their box’s look this way also. Probably a rush job at minimum cost when they first acquired the rolling stock…at least their motive power looks good!
19 years ago I was employed repainting wood chip cars of various ancestry into MRL blue, mostly former BN, and quite a few NP! Your description is precisely how we did it.
Looks like the same effect Conrail had on their covered hopper repaints. They weren’t fond of covered hoppers so there was no paint prep used on them. They just painted over the old paint and the dirt that had collected on them. You could see x-PRR cars with the CR Oxide red almost completely faded off showing the keystones.
These cars were painted early in the time of MRL in an outdoor area at the old Van Evans sawmill in Missoula and perhaps other locations. A special paint for application over existing paint was used though the original paint was not abraded in any manner, just washed with pressure washing equipment. Some cars were not thoroughly rinsed off and temperatures during application of the new colors was not consistent. Some of these cars were painted over 15 years ago so the applications are not holding up all that badly in service.
All recent repaints have had all the original paint blasted off with abrasive particles and completely primered before the new paint is applied in a somewhat heavier application that what was applied originally.
Sorry, Mr Valor, but MRL does not have any former NP wood chip cars in the revenue fleet. In fact none of the revenue cars on the MRL have any NP heritage. There are some company service cars from the NP via the BN but nothing for product loading. The Treasure Chest in Missoula still has a few copies of Bob DelGrosso’s MRL locomotive roster book from the year 2000 with Richard Yaremko’s freight car and caboose chapters for reference. It is a great source for MRL data.
arbfbe, crossing the MRL mainline between MP 118 and 119 of the 3 rd sub on a near daily basis
Who owned the Northern Pacific Wood Chip Hoppers that were on the Montana Rail Link in 1993?
Andrew
That would be BN. Many of these cars are still operating across the MRL with GBRX reporting marks having left the BNSF system.
There are BNSF ACF Center Flow Covered Hoppers that also have the BN Paint Scheme showing through the faded Oxide Red.
Perhaps it is just poor surface preparation on BN ACF Center Flow Covered Hoppers.
Andrew
This is sort of like in 1993 when Santa Fe sold 800 miles of KS branchlines to Central Kansas Ry. The new company took possession of about a dozen SF GP7&9 engs. It took about two yrs to paint the entire fleet into the CKRY solid red. By 1997 the red paint was starting to fade on a few units and eng 2239’s paint had faded so badly you could clearly see the old blue & yellow SF paint.
Thanks Al. I’m sure you’re right. I worked at that spur on the north side of the cemetary. I ascribe my memory loss to the fact that it was nearly 2 decades ago, and that the industrial fumes from that end of town messed up my head (altho family members would argue my condition predates this event).
Otherwise known as “Eatht Mithoola”
A bit west of Eatht Mithooooouuuula, up the 'Snake or Duncan Dr if I want to risk getting cut off by a train crossing Madison St.
Don’t much worry about the opinions of the family, their time is coming as well. Fumes or not, time will take it’s toll.
The guys using compressors just wore the cheap white breath masks. I stenciled reporting marks with a basic can of white spray paint, occasionally getting sprayed by the compressor guys… “accidently.” True, there was no capture equipment.
What was I thinking? It’s MP 117 on my side of Mt Jumbo. That was “Khanabad” of me. “No defects” indeed!
The guys using compressors just wore the cheap white breath masks (& could’ve used a few cheap white breath mints). I stenciled reporting marks with a basic can of white spray paint, occasionally getting sprayed by the compressor guys… “accidently.” True, there was no capture equipment.
What was I thinking? It’s MP 117 on my side of Mt Jumbo. That was “Khanabad” of me. “No defects” indeed!