To all the great railroaders out there:
Whats the weirdest commodity you’ve hauled on your trains?
A drunk off his ass BNSF Track Inspector.
My answer to this would not normally qualify as a commodity on a railroad, but I once created a single dome tank car, and lettered if for a fictional road that does not actually exist. I painted the car reefer yellow and lettered it with black lettering for the “Vermintown & Sewer City Railroad”, “RAW SEWAGE”. It is based on my disliking for Vermillion, South Dakota and Sioux City, Iowa. The story is that the EPA had ordered Vermintown to build a new solid waste treatment plant, and until they finish building it, they ship their raw sewage by rail to Sewer City to be dumpped there. A lot of the guys in our local club thought it was funny. [:P]
I put this car away out at the club and seldomly use it in a train, although I have thought of making a whole string of them, I just don’t want to insult anyone from Sioux City who might show up to see our club’s layout during our open houses.
CANADIANPACIFIC2816
[(-D]
Sludge and garbage–not weird any more.
My bike, on a locomotive or caboose–bikes on trains aren’t weird any more, either.
Guess I’ll have to go with a couple of tank cars I saw (one GATX, one UTLX) that had lessee markings for Baker’s Chocolate. At least one of them had a commodity stencil of “chocolate”, so I know it wasn’t just vegetable oil or some other ingredient.
And yes, those Center Flow cars with “French’s” logos used to transport powdered mustard.
At the other extreme, the stuff we hated to see come through was “fleshings”, A.K.A. “guts”, which were shipped in open gons. Add a little rain, and YUM!
Maybe a guy shouldn’t ask, but where did they ship the guts, and for what end use? (Please, oh please, don’t say Oscar Meyer!![xx(])
Saw plenty of weird things come in in the containers and trailers I checked in and out at the yard where I used to work. A few that come to mind are used shoes, deer hides, fireworks, cookies, olives, candy…
On the receipts we would print out for truckers taking boxes out of the yard would be printed a short line showing what was in the container. I once printed one out that said:
480 PAIRS OF GIRLS
I HAVE to believe that the last part of that line was cut off…shoes maybe? Or perhaps it was one of those containers with shackles…
wierdest thing I ever saw were a set of gondolas on Conrail loaded down with scrapped and crushed cop cars. I think they were old Fords from what I could tell. I thought those things usually got sold at auction.
Cheers!
~METRO
Doubt that it was revenue, but this motorcycle rolled into Avery one day …
saw a giant bottle car come through deshler.it was going to us steel in gary indiana.have also seen a giant westinghouse heavy car come through too but nothing was on it.I wonder if csx is going to have the asphundli train cars come through and spray the weeds.
stay safe
joe
I think Nora won…
If you open it up to the truckers on here we could beat those. Try one Breifcase Denver to the Federal reserve bank in Chicago IL. That load required 3 extra personal in the cab also with me 2 in the bunks with Squad Automatic Weapons and then that Secret Service agent in the Cab with me.
Smartest and wierdest the northern railroads ever shipped was snow. Following a massive storm railroads all over the northeast filled gons and hoppers with snow and sent it south to thaw.
I remeber hearing about this from a railroad friend. If memory serves by the time the snow got to where it was supost to be going, it had all melted, and then the train would just turn around and head back.
Saw a train of flat cars hauling parts of 10 wrecked UP GE Locomotives…
DEATH TO THE GE’S!!!
Oscar Meyer [;)][dinner]
yak fat, but you have to go back a long ways for the story on that one. Perhaps it is on the internet by now.
Michael,
Yes, there was quite an underground business on the MILW between Alberton and Avery in the 60’s and 70’s. First it was just the Honda trail bikes but when snowmobiles came along it became a trail bike west for the summer and back in the winter. The trail bike was replaced by a snowmobile until spring. Hey, the crews needed something to do for the long layovers in Avery! This would not likely be going on today since it commonly took 4-6 crew members to lift the snowmobiles onto the platforms of the Joes or SD40-2 units.
That may have been Cliff Dubois’s yellow Trail 90 in the photo.
Alan
I suppose the fleshings could have been used to make soap or something similar, though I can’t see how that would have gotten anything or anybody clean.
Snag, I could’ve sworn I heard a very familiar wishful-thinking tune being whistled when that car sloshed by…