Today I saw a UP unit train of covered hoppers that I had never seen before. Train was north bound in eastern OK just north of McAlester OK. Composed of about 60-80 gray covered hoppers and every car had white streaks down the sides from most filler opening. Cars had mixed reporting marks but I was not able to get a picture and I was not close enough to catch the reporting marks but one looked like it may have been FMLX or something close. No names on cars. I see trains on this set of tracks all the time to/from Texas but have never seen one like this. Any idea what they were hauling?
FMLX was a reporting mark for FMC Chemicals. It was probably transferred to Tronox when FMC sold the alkalis business. The cars were probably carrying sodium carbonate or sodium bicarbonate.
FMLX reporting mark is FMC Corporation Inorganic Cnemicals Division
An FMLX hopper http://www.rrmods.us/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/FMLX_Ph6.3.jpg
I found a Facebook page for the FMC Inorganic Chemicals Division, but there is nothing on it except the name.
Potash or soda ash. Potash comes from Canada, Soda ash from Wyoming.
At one time, the local road in this area had a fleet of covered hoppers in dedicated phosphate service, and the cars’ black paint didn’t remain black for very long:
They also had more modern cylindrical hoppers in the same state.
Wayne
Thanks all. The cylindricall hopper pic posted by DSchmitt matches the ones I saw. If I had seen one or two in a consist it would not have grabbed my attention but to see that many in a single train got my attention. I don’t know if unit trains of this single commodity is common but I have never seen one before. Would make a good unit train to model.
I had to take a second look at his link, as it looked “computeruzed”, and it’s from a simulator thing called Trainz. I’ve seen that menthod in here before.
Mike.
I agree but that matched the style of the cars I saw.
A gallery of FMLX cars