Hey Gang, the other day a friend of mine noticed a Vanderbilt tender hanging out over in Riverside Yard in Baltimore.

http://www.bing.com/maps/default.aspx?v ... &encType=1

It's strange in that it's hanging out in the yard over there, but moves around (inside the yard, anyway).

It's the type of thing you expect to be sitting there rusting away, but nope.

We did a driveby the other day and saw that it actually has some reporting marks on it:
RPCX 545. I know RPCX is a Railway Preservation group (they're the reporting marks the CRHS's caboose travels under), but beyond that I don't know anything about the car.

Anyone have any info?

I covered this in my post in the earlier "Surviving Tenders" thread:

viewtopic.php?f=1&t=27908&start=15

A search for "RPCX 545" come up with this rather impressive list of other rolling stock using those reporting marks:

http://www.rrpicturearchives.net/rsList.aspx?id=RPCX

Which provides alternate photo:

http://www.rrpicturearchives.net/showPi ... id=1201955


A discussion on TrainOrders suggests that the Umler record for this "car" shows a bad-order for draft-gear issues that was repaired ten months later..........

http://www.trainorders.com/discussion/r ... ?2,1943105


As an aside, I will mention that the specific tracks this thing has been floating about on, down in a lower loop adjacent to I-95 and Andre Street, are tracks where stuff seemingly goes to die--several of the cars from the Howard Street Tunnel fire in 2001 spent YEARS rusting away in some of these back tracks before being scrapped on site.

This is one of the few pieces left from the "museum track" of B&O Museum equipment that overflowed into CSX's Mt. Clare "A" yard for many years (there were four Mt. Clare yards at one time - A through D - the museum was "D" yard). A couple of Terminal Managers ago, the museum was told they had to vacate A-Yard. Quite a bit of what was there were donated freight cars that were cut-up for scrape. GG1 4876 was taken down to the museum, and the C&O Vanderbilt tender was de-accessed and sold to RPCX. They had one of their guys in there with a work truck trying to get in in shape to move. I talked to him briefly at one point and my understanding was that it was supposed to go to the WMSR.

I guess it ended up at Locust Point as a way to get it out of the way until the present owner can remove it. Most of the "New" yard where it is was used for the grain terminal, which is long gone, hence extra trackage to store it on.