Who owns these Southern Gondolas?

Trains Magazine General Discussion
1

Does anybody have a clue who owns these two gondolas? They are Sou 65054 (BLT 3-79) and Sou 65517 (BLT 4-69). They have been sitting on this line for at least the last four years. This used to be a NS line until the Hartwell Railroad (a local shortline empire) began leasing it. Now I’m curious as to whether NS sold them or what?

You can see them sitting here on a small siding. They were recently moved a few hundred feet to the south. You can see three coal hoppers on the siding where they are now. (I think it may have something to do with the construction of that new bus station-which they hope to make a train station also one day…).

http://maps.live.com/default.aspx?v=2&cp=pnt21y81k5cg&style=o&lvl=2&tilt=-90&dir=0&alt=-1000&scene=5829661&encType=1

The “When Empty Return Promptly to Sou. Ry. or C. of GA. Any Junction Point” is pretty ironic in the case of these two.

2

I would say they still belong to NS. Reason being, the don’t have any stenciling or any other i.d. claiming other ownership.

3

Is it possible, or for that matter could it be probable that these gons were “forgotten?” Were these gons simply a matter of oversite and written off?

4

Probably just no need for them that anyone knows of right now (meanwhile, elsewhere on the railroad, some supervisor is saying ‘I wish I could get my hands on a couple of gons right now’).

So they’re essentially in storage. The fact that they were recently moved means someone knows they are there. Eventually they’ll turn up ‘missing.’

5

Most likely MofW gon’s included in sale of line, since they are not in interchange its is moot to renumber or letter them.

I can’t see trucks but most likely still friction bearing trucks, prohibiting interchange.

6

No, cars with the build dates mentioned would have roller-bearing trucks. They aren’t in that bad a shape, really, sompared to some of the sh-tuff we see around here. Someone with access to a NS equipment trace should try out those numbers and see what the railroad does know about them.

7

I agree these gons are actually in pretty good shape. I don’t even have an ORER to check the numbers, but I was actually betting on NS just forgeting that they were down there. And obviously the Hartwell knows that they are there, but I don’t know that they own them.

8

Checked in Umler.

Cars belong to NS.

Only 70 ton cars if they were 100 ton cars Im sure they would be missed

9

Thanks railcar! Good point about the 70 tons…I missed that. Still funny that NS seems to have “lost” two rail cars.

10

Railroads have 1000’s of cars stored all over the place.

Some sit for a short time some for many years.

11

these gons are and have been used for scrap metal when the price went down they stored these gons they probley have forgotten them as we have been calling for the little red gons ( what we called them on our division) to load. not having great luck getting them. ( cyo know where everything is ) it was much better before them. reason why those are popular is the low sides older scrap yards dont like or cant load the taller gons

12

Short lines offer storage for cars as a secondary form of income. I have seen long lines of TTX unit flats stored long enough in Georgia that the kudzu is getting up into the trucks. (That could be anywhere from 15 minutes to a week… and that stuff grows fast enough that it’ll snatch up a conductor or brakeman in seconds… causing Georgia lines to do a count of crew before the engineer releases brakes!)

Erik