The hopper is being donated by the Franklin County Commission to a museum up in Shippensburg which probably means within a month it will be covered in graffiti by the university students. Considering that the parking lot that it is currently parked in has been slated for development/use for the courthouse project; it was inevitable that the car would be moved somewhere. http://www.franklincountypa.gov/index.p ... &prrid=383

When I think of taggers, I immediately think of college students. </sarcasm>

I'm just saying, that was a weird comment.

I’m from Chambersburg, and it is local knowledge that Shipensburg Uni is a party school. Heck the students there cause property damage on a regular basis.

Today's culture tolerates spray paint as a form of "artistic commentary", which means, we are tired of fighting back with appropriate measures. Furthermore, much of this happens under cover of darkness. I wonder if a city wide campaign of "Graffiti Damages History. Please Don't Vandalize" announcements or radio or billboard, even at the potential site, might curb the practice?

I believe the Hopper is to set up in conjunction with the already existing Shippensburg Station display, located on the Cumberland Valley Rail Trail, which features an ex-NYC boxcar which contains a small museum.

I hope it doesn’t get tagged like that boxcar. What kind of vagrant does one have to be to paint Penn Central lettering on an innocent boxcar. ;-)

Rob -

Hee, Hee! Well, I'm not sure what vagrant "tagged" the boxcar at the Shippensburg Station display, but we had a "vagrant" at the Hoosier Valley Railroad Museum who tagged our Pennsylvania boxcar #607627 similarly. I would have preferred PRR, but Mark wielded the paint brush and kept the car in its later PC paint scheme. I've got to admit, it does look pretty good!

Les

Who'd have thought it?

Les-

Not trying to derail the topic, but I see GTW caboose behind the boxcar. Has the caboose been repainted?

Nick

Nick - Yes. This is the second time we've given GTW transfer caboose 75072 a fresh coat of Morency Orange.

Incidentally, I did a bit of checking on the PC boxcar at Shippensburg Station. Here is a photo of the abandoned car:

http://www.rrpicturearchives.net/showPi ... id=4544054

And here is PC #184301 after its restoration:

http://www.rrpicturearchives.net/showPi ... id=4933672


Les

Many of us clown about the Penn Central with bitter irony, but the restoration of the box car does a service to its history, and that of the predecessor railroads. It's a "win" in terms of preservation, for certain.

Dick - I'm not a big fan of the Penn Central and its history, but I agree that it too deserves its place in railroad history. Your comment, and the photo of our restored PC boxcar at Hoosier Valley lit a light bulb over my head! Mark left something off when he repainted PC 153177. I dug around the internet and discovered this photo of the car when Chuck Zeiler found it in Jeffersonville, Indiana back in 1986:

http://www.rrpicturearchives.net/showPi ... id=4946378

Note the lettering up on the upper right side of the car. I'm not sure what the first lines read, but when Conrail donated the car to us in 1994, I could still manage to read that single bottom line that said "PRR 607627". Apparently Penn Central put the heritage of the cars they acquired on the car when it was repainted into a PC paint scheme. Mark wouldn't have known that when he restored the car as the rust by that time had obliterated that info. I'm also not sure what size that lettering was; perhaps 1 inch? I'll mention it to Mark, but I'm not sure he would want to go back and add it now. But it too is an important part of the cars history. BTW, when Conrail got these cars from the PC system, I'm 99.99% sure that this tradition did not continue.

Thank you Dick for your note about Penn Central and its history. If you had not put that comment out there, I would have completely forgotten about this little tidbit.

Les

On the roll:





https://www.facebook.com/ShippensburgSt ... =3&theater

Was this the same GTW transfer caboose that was in Woodland, IN on IN 331 by itself on a short section of display track? I used to go thru there often and noticed the caboose vanished a few years ago. I think it was there until around the early 2000's. There was also an older fire engine parked close to it which also disappeared at the same time. Although if you say HVRM already repainted the caboose twice it is likely is has been at North Judson longer than that so it may not be the one from Woodland?




I know Conrail cabooses were stenciled with the previous owner/number in the manner you describe. Think some/many of their freight cars got the same treatment so CR was simply continuing a tradition the PC started. Kind of funny this tradition did not extend to locomotives but I guess the FRA blue card provided a record of ownership and renumbering changes in that case.

Robert J -

I'm not 100% certain, but it may well have been the caboose in Woodland, Indiana. The guys who moved it were supposed to pick up a donated flat car in South Bend, Indiana and when we got there, the flat car was blocked and couldn't be moved. The GTW transfer caboose had also been donated to Hoosier Valley so we talked it over with the movers and decided to go down and get GTW 75072 instead. I can't say for certain it was Woodland, but I know it was somewhere south of South Bend, so that location fits. I don't recall an old fire engine, but it may have been there. We were occupied with getting the 75072 moved, so were concentrating on that work. BTW, the car had come from somewhere else and I don't know its previous history. It did not come directly from the GTW to the spot where we picked it up.

Hope this helps.

Les