I saw this 4 bay hopper a couple of days ago, and when I was reviewing my pictures, I realized I haven’t ever seen something like this before (look at the metal shrouding on both ends under the ladders).
It’s a Trinity Lease car, so I would guess that Trinity made it, however, I can’t find anything on their web site for a car that looks like this. Is it a new car type? An old car type? I assume it was handling a food commodity, since it was near the Malt-O-Meal plant in Northfield, MN, but there’s a lot of unrelated traffic in that yard, so it might be something else.
It’s actually a very old plastics car from Trinity Industries (newer designs have less steel in the end areas). It was built for Chevron (I think it was SCJX, same number, originally, with the “91” referring to the year it was built, in Chevron’s numbering system). You can tell from the picture that it was relettered without being renumbered. It could have been altered for food service, but probably not–I didn’t notice any modification of the outlets (you’d almost expect that a food-service car would have gravity-pneumatic outlets, instead of the pneumatic outlets of a plastics car).
It is hauling plastic pellets…most likely for injection molding of containers or plastic wrapper material…we get those cars down here a lot…Casey Yard, (BNSF SIT yard) is full of them, they end up at Chevron, Phillips and Solvay for loading.
Thanks guys, I appreciate it.
When the Trinity and Thrall Car merger occured the freight car product lines were combined.
In 2005 or 2006 Trinity streamlined the type of freight cars offered to the basic car types. That is why you do not see this car on their web site. This 4-Bay Covered Hopper is not a basic modern design, so it is not being produced anymore.
Andrew