Does someone know if some 50ft cars in “Western Pacific” and “Norfolk and Western” paint scheme are still in service, please?
I will occasionally see a boxcar still painted for Western Pacific, mainly ones in the WP 38000 series. I have also see WP 64712, which is an RBL I will also occasionally see covered hoppers and center-flow hoppers still painted for WP.
I see a few N & W cars from time to time. I have an even better one for you-I do not know the dispostion today-but up til 98 there were a few NKP open top hoppers running between Edwardsville and Sorento, Il on a shale move for Richards Brick in Edwardsville.
Through Denver here I will often see units trains of coal running on the UP down the Moffat Line that are made up of nothing but WP, MP, CNW, & DRGW hoppers. Every once and a while there is an SSW hopper in there too.
WP, yes–I see them every so often.
The latest Equipment Register shows quite a few 50-foot box cars still lettered NW, but those could be in the NS paint scheme or boxcar brown with N&W lettering. It’s been ages since I’ve seen a black or blue NW (or N&W) box car. NS has probably been the most fanatical of the big railroads about getting rid of old paint schemes on its freight cars (or at least tied with CSX for that distinction).
CSX hasnt been in too much of a hurry considering all the kittys ive seen lately.
stay safe
Joe
You are looking at the old Geneva sets that only haul coal now. (See the CHTT cars in there too?)
Some of the early Geneva sets even had Clinchfield and Reading hoppers in the mix, which got phased out when the CNW, MP, and CHTT cars started appearing. Getting back to the topic, I’ve seen some WP boxcars with BAEX reporting marks, and a few WP covered hoppers with their original reporting marks. Earlier this year, I saw one of those long hy-cube N & W boxcars, painted blue with the railroad’s name spelled out, and an older N & W logo ( the one with the N & W initials inbetween two half moons within a circle).
Why would you one suddenly see such a car now? (the hi- cube blue N&W) Is that perhaps because it has been in storage for many years and missed its opertunity to get upgraded paint, or what / why?
I just saw a whole bunch of long hi-cubes get pulled out of storage, I don’t know where they went other then to a locall yard and prepped and sent. I could’t tell all the colour schemes but some were clearly MILW cars and CPR cars and others.
I’m guessing that the blue N & W hi-cube car has managed to escape being repainted so far due to management “forgetting” to paint it when it comes in for repairs. Or maybe the paint is still in good shape, so there’s no hurry on repainting the car. The car may have been in storage for awhile before being recalled to duty, and skipped a trip to the repainter, like you mentioned. If that’s the case then I wonder why it wasn’t repainted while in storage. Maybe Norfolk Southern plans on retiring that type of car from its roster, so there’s no point in wasting paint on it.
Yeah, there are a few old CHTT cars in there. There is also a truck-load of CTRN cars in there as well.
Anybody know of any good websites that have decent pictures of some of these old placards and logos?
Yes you can still find ample cars still im WP and NW paint these days.
I have never heard of SSW open top hoppers.
I forgot to mention in my first post, a couple of years ago I saw a train that was composed entirely of gondolas, I think it was a MOW train. There were a large quantity of WP 7700 series cars in it.
Thanks to ALL.
Happy New Year