Saw an NS unit train at lunch today. Silver painted hoppers carrying coal. I think they said coaltopper on the side but I am having a senior moment. Every one above the data block had “REBODY 6/94” and other dates. Now I have seen NEW dates when they have been rebuilt but these were looking pretty old and beat up. Anyone care to venture a guess as to what rebody indicates?
I’ve never heard of “REBODY”, but perhaps it refers to the carbody being reconditioned.
“NEW”, on the other hand, refers to the car’s LT.WT., and confirms that the car, when built, was of the weight indicated. The “NEW” date will usually match the “BLT.” date. After a prescribed interval, depending on the era and car type, regulations require the car to be re-weighed. The “NEW” and its date will be painted over with the symbol of the scale station doing the re-weighing and the date on which it occurred. If this weight differs from the original weight, that number will also be painted over and re-stencilled accordingly, along with the LD.LMT.
Wayne
The NS Rebody program has, since the early 90’s, converted more than 17,000 coal hoppers to hi cube-style high capacity coal gondolas which increased their lading capacity and useful life. The rebody stencil on the side of a car would indicate when such work was completed.
Going to NS’s site and/or reviewing past Annual Reports or Capital Spending press releases will indicate the cost and time frame for such work.
I bet the cars you saw were part of NS’s “Top Gon” program of rebuilding older coal hoppers into coal gons. I have often seen these cars going through Rochelle IL. I think Model Railroader had a brief discussion about these cars in a fairly recent issue. There is information about the program on this website http://www.krunk.org/~joeshaw/pics/ns/coal-gon/topgon.shtml
and mention of an HO model being available on this website
http://catcliffedemon.wordpress.com/2007/01/16/top-banana/
Dave Nelson