Whlrydr wrote: First, thanks for the very interesting and useful responses. Alex, I’d hoped that CSX, knowing they’d be handling a real C&O historical artifact, might be more respectful! Oh well…I have thought about having someone on board but now maybe I should think more seriously on this. You sound like you might know the route north from Miami. Winston Yard? Waycross is I assume in Georgia. How might these be “interesting”?
Do not assume that CSX will have the first clue. To hell with whether it was C&O, they might be very lucky just to figure out it's a passenger car! And then if they DO figure out it's a passenger car, for all we know they just MIGHT reflexively send it to Amtrak's Beech Grove facility near Indianapolis--because if it's a passenger car, that's obviously where it has to be going, right?
I'm being cynical and sarcastic, but we've learned the hard way that such cynicism is often warranted and a necessary defensive mechanism. Even if we are true railroaders, as enthusiasts and historians we definitely think differently than they do. You can honestly expect them, in spite of every special direction in the shipping orders and placards all over the car, to try to send the car over a hump or to couple it into the front or middle of a train rather than the end. They'll refuse the car because they can't figure out how to operate the couplers, or because they're afraid the couplers won't work properly and just leave the "problem" for the next day's crew. I've had to stand there and practically order a crew to take the car that they were supposed to pick up, with railroad police calling the yardmaster to confirm--after three days of trying to defer the "problem car" to someone else, or making excuses that they didn't think a passenger car could possibly be on their waybill.
The last time I had something moving in that area, my southbound stuff was held up for two days at Waycross (southeast Georgia) and four days at Winston (near Lakeland, Fla.) because the CSX power desk at Jacksonville wouldn't let either yard have any southbound power. Of course, this was during that Super Bowl in Jacksonville, leading the yardmaster at Winston and I to conspire to drive up to J-ville and commandeer an empty power desk and allocate ourselves some locomotives........
Quote: The car will not have anything working on the inside. Looks like a sleeping bag sort of situation. Again, I appreciate more opinions from those more knowledgeable than I about this sort of thing.
If the car is uninhabitable, and even if it were self-contained and ready, you would NOT be allowed by CSX to occupy the car during movement. Assume that a "chase vehicle" would have to run from yard to yard ahead of/alongside the train. You'll be a thorn in the yardmasters/crews' sides, but at times you might even be able to swoop in and assist them--for example, driving them back along the train to help inspect for where the air hoses parted or whatnot. Other things you will be guarding against: graffiti taggers, arsonists, or worse while the car is parked in a bad part of a bad town.
This kind of job is not for the faint of heart. I used to charge $250 a day plus expenses for this work, and only in territory I was reasonably comfortable and familiar with. The clients usually regarded as money well spent--just one smashed window would eat up that money awfully fast.
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