Our railcar fleets

What kind of railcars do you run? If you have a freelanced railroad, does it have their own cars?

I only have Amtrak cars on my layout. And one UP boxcar that cleans the track, that i am eventually gonna paint silver to make it Amtrak.

I freelance a shortline. Lots of coil steel cars, centerbeams, tankcars, and boxcars. A few covered hoppers (plastic pellets), but no cars lettered for my line.

SRVfan

I have something about 1.000 cars - At the moment I have 159 Bethgons (My BNSF coaltrain was with LBF cars - now I change into Athearrn! [:D]
Most of the freight cars are west coast RR´s but, like real, my freight cars are from many different RR´s, also east.

My passenger cars are UP, AT&SF and Amtrak. Plus N&H RDC´s (I like the paint scheme[:)]) and two commuter trains: METRA [;)] and Metrolink [8D].

My freight fleet is mostly boxcars but I do have centerbeams, pulpwood, intermodal, covered hoppers & tank cars.
I don’t have any car that isn’t painted for an existing RR yet, but some day when I perfect my decal making, I’ll come up with some.

Gordon

600+ freight cars and counting. For my 1950-ish layout, the majority of the cars (about 50%) are 40’ box cars, divided into about 40% wood/composite and 60% all-steel. I’ve also got large numbers of reefers, twin hoppers, stock cars, tanks, flats and gondolas. I need to increase my number of gons and reduce my number of twin hoppers. I’ve also got a FEW specialty cars floating around, like one vinegar tank, two depressed-center flats, one carbon black covered hopper, and a small handful of 70 ton covered hoppers. You might find a few 50’ auto boxes running around too!

First ,yes I have locomotives and cars lettered for my C&HV.
As many may already know I am a boxcar junkie.I have a collection of short line boxcars as well as other roads.I also have coil cars,covered hoppers,tank cars…Strangley or perhaps oddly enough I do not have that many gons,flats or coal cars.You see I dislike open cars as you must load or unload them during operation according to the waybill.You see to my mind nothing looks as bad as a loaded flat car when the waybill says its a empty.[B)]
However,I do have center beams and bulkhead flats that I can easily remove the lumber loads from.So,I have several of those cars since the loads do not need glued in place like you would on a normal flat…I have a 45 car coal train with home made loads that is for club use only.As for gons…Never cared much for those types of cars.

Since I model the Milwaukee Road in the 50’s, about 50% of my cars are Milwaukee Road cars. I do have a ‘personal’ freight car - a MDC 40’ rib side boxcar with MP&N reporting marks(Mineral Point & Northern). This was an old pre Milwaukee Road shortline(the late Paul Larson of MR called his railroad this). I have several of these cars and use them for ‘trades’ with other ‘private’ road HO cars. Most of the cars on the layout are very correct for the locale/era, but I have let a G&D(John Allen) box car, and a V&O coal hopper slip in to the operating sessions now and then. Since they do not have flashy paint schemes, they are really not noticed right away. Usually someone will finally say something after a while!

Jim Bernier

6 B&O hoppers, and about 15 mixed boxcars

About 300 freightcars and 50 passenger. I model Santa Fe, but I have a ficticious shortline timber-hauling shortline based partly on Moscow, Camden & San Augustine,
(http://www.railimages.com/albums/kennethanthony/aau.jpg )
partly on Texas & South-Eastern and partly on the Kirby Lumber trams that ran trackage rights over ATSF trackage.
An SW-9 and a former SP wooden caboose are painted to match similar T&SE prototypes.
The logging line is the Johnston and East Texas, JET. Gives a new meaning of (non) speed to the word.

I will run unit coal trains, autoracks, intermodals, piggys and passenger trains.

I only run Santa Fe Super Chief, however, I have two Amtrak sets (Superliner and the Lake Shore Limited) and freight cars including an intermodal car, piggy back car, lumber cars, coal cars, 4 boxcars, light car, crane car, Southern Pacific Parlor, Pennsylvania Sleeper, etc.

Assorted cars, notably a mixed double stack/TOFC (mix of Athearn double stacks and Walthers spine cars), a set of Walthers Superliners including MHCs and Express Boxes, two bilevel commuter car sets (one Athearn Metrolink, one Walthers C&NW), and a 50’s/60’s freight made up from assorted Athearn cars. There’s also the beginnings of a modern mixed freight on the way - so far it’s mainly Athearn ACF centreflows and a couple of Walthers steel coil cars.

As a protofreelancer myself, I have a few pieces of rolling stock for my own road, however, the majority of my stock is of real roads…[8][8][8]

I am a freelancer railroader also. All my locos are PRR and a few of my rolling stock has my railroad name on them.

My fleet is heavy on boxcars - more than 100, of which 60%‘are 40’ and 40% are 50’- most of ‘em from the 1940-60 era. 10 of the 40’ boxcars are what I would call generic cars, they are not owned by a railroad company but by a leasing co. |They have no company logo or name but just the technical data and reporting marks ending on X
The balance of my fleet is mainly covered hoppers, tankcars and condolas and smaller numbers of flatcars both simple and bulkhead, open hoppers and reefers. No MOW cars and other such cars, they take up valuable yard space. The passenger dept. owns a couple of wooden coaches that are used for fan trips and an gas electric and RDC for local passenger service.

Since I intend to model rural Minnseota, I have more grain hoppers than any other single type of car. However, I like a variety, so there are many cars where I’ve only got one of the type. Generally, the rarer the prototype car is the more likely I am to want one.

Although the formal name of my MRR is the “Denver & Minnesota Western Railway” I have yet to paint a single car in the company colors. This is explained under paragraph four of my Modeler’s Licence, which states that since the Milwaukee “owns” my paper company, all stock is in the orange/black and yellow/ gray.

Geez, I hope I didn’t sound like a rivet counter there. Because I’m not! Just like to write a good fiction piece now and then!

I have Genesis 60ft. high cubes, Walthers UP bethgons, 40 & 50ft. boxcars, gons, flats and bulkhead flats, a lot of tank cars and 4750 cu. ft. covered hoppers, Amtrak Superliners, and UP heavyweight passenger cars, and recently a Kato Santa Fe business car, which I like a lot. Another recent acquisition is an Athearn 85 ft. high cube box that is nice in Mo Pac buzzsaw herald.

Mac

Boxcars all types - 135
Tank - 35
CVR Hoppers - 80
Gondolas & Flats - 102
Hoppers 70 & 100 ton - 300
Other car types - 98
Total 750

Road names - CR and most of the railroads that made up Conrail - Time frame of the layout is 1975 to 1985 - The layout is based on the CR lowgrade line that ran from Driftwood to East Brady, PA. The main comodity was coal.

BOB H Clarion, PA