Odd passenger cars at end of freight train?

Trains Magazine General Discussion
1

Hi, I was watching the roanoke can and I saw a freight train. But it have two (on a bit graffitied) passenger cars, then a box car, then the end? I was just wondering what they could of been for?

thanks,

Chris

2

Don’t specifically know in this particular instance - on my carrier passenger cars cannot have more than 7500 trailing tons behind them.

3

A couple of possibilities - cars purchased by someone (possibly a museum or an individual) being hauled somewhere for rehab and display, or perhaps even use as a private car (a la NYC “Sandy Creek” and others).

Railroad owned, although I don’t think there are many old passenger cars in MOW service.

Clearly they’ve been passed for trip over the rails (sometimes an issue with old cars). Cars headed for a destination where Amtrak has no facilities to remove them from the train go as freight cars in freight trains from wherever Amtrak can take them off.

4

I would guess that each railroad will have it’s own set of pecautions for moving ‘passenger’ eqipment in situation other than what would be a designated/ offical Office Car movement.

A story in railroad circles told about the time in 1989 when Mike Haverty invited J.B, Hunt to ride the Santa Fe’s ‘Super C’, and introduced the trucker to how the railroad could move piggy-back between Chicago and the West Coast. It is still a solid alliance to this date.

Around here Office Care movements seem to happen more at night or in the evening hours. BNSF keeps its Offic Car fleet at its facilities in Topeka.[ Roughly, 150 miles]. Recently, I have seen some multiple Office fleet cars/(trains?) pass by here; (West End of the Emporia sub, and its junction Mulvane,Ks.). Lately, also there have been moves with a single unit for power,and a hopper-style car, followed by a single Office Car on the rear. No idea of what they might have been studying or testing(?).

5

Thanks for all the help everyone. Also, this train was around 11 pm eastern, so it was at night.

6

I’d bet they were headed to the VMT (Virginia Museum of Transportation) that is just barely visible at the extreme right of the camera’s view.

7

I’m pretty sure they were going away from the museum, but im not 100% sure. I think they were mostly white too.

Thanks,

Chris

8

One of these trains was mentioned by me on the Rochelle Web Cam thread. It seems it is a rail test car being tested for use by BNSF. Someone even found a video of it.

Bruce

9

When passenger cars are transported, they typically seem to be handled at the end of the train but with one other car placed behind. So this sounds pretty typical for such a movement.

I did not see the cars mentioned, but they could be a) new cars heading somewhere b) old cars sold to a new owner heading somewhere c) older cars heading to a museum (basically same case as b).

Someone mentioned a nearby museum and the fact that in the video they might appear to be going away - without knowing the local geography that may or may not be the case. Depending on where the closest yard is and the various routes, a car for a customer could very easily pass right by the destination one or more times on through trains between major or regional yards before being delivered by the wayfreight/local job.

10

I am active on the Rochelle webcam thread and saw the posts about the geometry cars. These cars I saw were white and red and almost looked like one of the southern pacific paint schemes.

Thanks,

Chris

11

Any chance they were NS MOW camp cars?

12
13

Staying, as I do, in an old CR camp car (now privately owned), when working on the railroad, I can say that with the full complement of eight people, it would be no fun…

All it takes is one person…

I would opine, though, that while the cars seen may be MOW, if they were the kind of camp car I use, they’d be “mistaken” for containers on flat cars.

14

What is the reason for placing this car behind the passenger cars?

15

It is sometimes difficult to find a way to connect and secure an EOT to a passenger car.

16

Thanks for everything guys. I don’t think they were MOW camp cars but they could of been.

17

Been there; done that. Took a bit of creative rule-complaince to get those cars to the yard (it was the last stop of the night, and time was getting thin, so we jsut grabbed them on the tail…had to improvise when the EOT wouldn’t fit under the diaphragm).

18

Well, I finally found a picture. I lost some files on my desktop a few days ago, but here it is.

19

Ex-American Orient express cars maybe?

20

ahhhh, what are those?