Hello Forum,
Can anyone tell me if a CSX, UP, or Burlington Hopper would have been prototypical in a Santa Fe freight consist?
Thanks,
Bernard
Yes, but CB&Q hoppers would probably have been rare by the time there were CSXT hoppers.
It depends…If you’re asking about a time frame, as noted above the “old” Burlington (CB&Q) had merged with NP and GN to form BN in 1970, about 15-20 years before CSX was created from the merger of the Chessie System and the Seaboard System. It’s possible an old CB&Q car could be in the same train with a recently repainted CSX car (I photographed “Big Sky Blue” GN boxcars as late as 1991) but it wouldn’t have been common.
If you’re asking more about location - i.e., would it be common to see say BN, CSX or UP cars out west on the Santa Fe (which of course was merged with BN 15 years ago to form BNSF) the answer is yes. Pretty much any general purpose freight car could show up on any railroad. Yes, you’d be more likely to see say a Boston and Maine boxcar in the eastern US than on the west coast, but they could turn up anywhere.
Hi!
A couple years ago I decided to thin out my rolling stock - over 600 pieces - many still in kit form. I model the '50s ATSF (with an IC interchange) and the local is generic midwest from southern Illinois to north Texas, so I had a start on the criteria for “thinning out”.
The first to go were cars with build dates or rebuild dates (or paint schemes) post 1959. And then I narrowed down duplicate ATSF cars, which helped some. But still I wanted to narrow down the inventory.
Getting to your question… the fact is, pretty much any car from any RR could appear on any other RR’s trackage. Of course, some cars are much more likely to roam - like the boxcar. Well, I had hoppers from literally every RR in the US (that had models). So while it was painful, I realized that a pretty blue B&M hopper would likely never appear on midwest IC or ATSF trackage. The same goes for so many of the other eastern roads.
But that was just my criteria, and to paraphrase what was said earlier, “never say never”!