Recently read on the TRAINS newswire about the donation by BNSF of one of their three "Super Hoppers"; AT&SF #390002. This 5 unit articulated set of covered hoppers was built for the Santa Fe back in 1991 and has been stored for some time and was due to be scrapped before the Oklahoma Railway Museum requested the donation. ORM seems to be a very aggressive museum. One of their preserved items is Missouri-Kansas-Texas inspection car number 1045:

http://www.rrpicturearchives.net/showPi ... id=4953467

Custom made by the Katy shops from an old 40' steel boxcar, the unit was taken out of service when the MKT was merged into Union Pacific, but the car was not scrapped. Ending up with the U.S. Army which painted it red for a use that did not develop, the car was given to ORM by the Army and eventually restored.

I recently read that the museum was in the process of rehabbing one of its 50 boxcars. Does the museum really have 50 boxcars? If so, the recent addition of the articulated hopper car and the restoration of MKT 1045 really highlights ORM's freight car collection, which must be one of the largest, and certainly most interesting, in the U.S.

Les

Thanks for the link Les that inspection car has got to be pretty rare and unique. Very cool. Regards, John.

Les,
The Illinois Railway Museum has about 45 freight cars at Union. Some are fully restored like a B&O Wagon Top box car and others are simply storage boxes on wheels. But they have a lot of equipment, including a fleet of reefers used as storage.

Ted Miles, IRM Member

I would wager a good chunk of money that they meant "one of our 50' boxcars," meaning they have a couple fifty-foot-long boxcars.

An extremely good guess. I was able to find an ORM equipment roster and they show three 50' steel automobile cars; all originally AT&SF. Two of the cars were apparently rebuilt about 1940 from older wood bodied cars and have end doors. Not quite sure about the third ex-Santa Fe car.

Les

If IRM had a mind to, they could put together the biggest photo freight in history, with 1630 leading the way...

Found a photo of sister AT&SF "Super Hopper" #390000 taken way back in 2002 which shows all 5 articulated units making up the car:

http://www.rrpicturearchives.net/showPi ... ?id=233074

This also shows the car before the graffiti vandals hit the original lettering.


Les

Interesting, I never saw one of those growing up along the Santa Fe in Illinois, but I moved about the time, and they may have stayed out west.

On a related note, has anyone saved a Santa Fe "10 pack" (name changed to "fuel foiler," even though no one knew what that meant, because 10 pack implied alcohol), articulated spine cars with common trucks between cars? They were part of the Santa Fe innovation program that the hopper car set was no doubt part of, and they dominated Santa Fe piggyback trains (i.e., most Santa Fe trains) in the eighties. There was a set of crossovers in my town, and when they went through at 70mph they created a unique sound, the common BANG BANG where two sets of trucks went across, followed by nine bangs every second or so, and then another BANG BANG. They were more stable and didn't rock as much, reduced wind drag because there was less space between trailers, and also reduced tare weight, but not as much as containers. The last time I was in my hometown I didn't see any pig trains, just containers.

They are therefore significant, the drawback to saving one is that they would take up a lot of space and aren't much to look at without trailers:

PMC -

Wow! I think I read that the Santa Fe's "Super Hopper" 5 unit car was about 166' long. I would think that many museums might have a hard time finding space for 166' of freight cars on their storage tracks. What would the 10 unit TOFC articulated flat car length be?

Les

I believe the maximum length of trailers (without a permit) was 48' in the eighties, so I would bet each section would be 50', so 500' total. What could be done is put two of the end cars together, or possibly the two end cars and then a single middle car with the articulation. Add some representative trailer, e.g., the trailers the Santa Fe bought starting in the late seventies with the weird lettering, shown in the photo above. I'm still inclined to say "meh", to be honest I was bored with 70 mph pig trains in the eighties, but for an entity documenting the Santa Fe you can't really talk about the railroad's last twenty years or so without piggyback.. A question future preservationists will be faced with at some point is should we preserve these and container well cars, etc..