Last night while switching out cars, I came across one that caught my attention, mainly because it was covered in large rivets. The blt date said 6-29 It was a flat car. The trucks I don't think were original, said barber B-2 on them.I wonder how many revenue cars of this age are still in active service after 75 years. I still see hoppers built in the early 50's but usually used only as service equipment cars, not general interchange cars.

I think you would have to look at passenger cars to find something older. Our diner was built in 1925 and moved over NS and UP last year. I think there are some other passenger cars even older that can run on Amtrak.

Erie Lackawanna Dining Car Preservation Society
tstuy-nospam@eldcps.org

I think you will need to find cars in a railroad's
Maintaince of Way fleet to find anything really old.

I note that much of what I see in museum collections is comong from MOW fleets.

Ted Miles

ted_miles@nps.gov

Conrail now CSX has lots of old PRR cast steel flat cars in MOW service. Some of these date from the 1920's. Think of the stories they could tell if they could talk. When you see these babies you think they are built to last forever and so far they seem to be living up to it.

Tom Gears

> Conrail now CSX has lots of old PRR cast
> steel flat cars in MOW service. Some of
> these date from the 1920's. Think of the
> stories they could tell if they could talk.
> When you see these babies you think they are
> built to last forever and so far they seem
> to be living up to it.

> Tom Gears

Tom, you are so right. When I went to work for the IC, our terminal was one that was designated
to have a wrecker and its crew. The old steam wrecker was accompanied by locomotive tanks for wrecker boiler water and for crew drinking, cooking and washing. Old flat cars and box cars carried the extra track materials and wrecking tools. But the gems of the outfit were the wooden
passenger cars from the 1880s that had been converted to cook and dining car and bunk car.
Shortly before 1950 these were replaced with steel
cars that probally dated from the early 1920s.
When I found that the cars were to be replaced I put in a bid to buy them. Unfortunately, the only other bid, and it came much later than mine, was
from an electrician who worked in our tool room.
While this was being decided the electrician was
nearly electrocuted by a high-cycle reamer that
someone had mis-wired causing the handle was hot.
Naturally the company was doing everything possible to stay in good graces with the injured
electrician, so they asked me if I would step aside and let him have the cars to put on some lake property he owned. I did and he did. Everytime I was out that way I would drive by to take a look at the cars but finally I more or less forgot them. A year or so ago I went looking for them again. There was a barn sided building where I expected to find tham, but I did not recognize it as being the one built from the two cars. About 2 months ago a friend who had been helping me look for them found the spot where they had been empty and learned from a fellow truck driver that he was the one who had
bought the property, bull dozed and burned the buildings and the cars they enclosed !
When my friend told him what he had done his statement was "I didn't know onyone would want them."
Jim


rrfanjim@charter.net

Can anybody cite the FRA rules governing the age of equipment? I'm too rusty to do it from memory. Do they even apply anymore?

> Can anybody cite the FRA rules governing the
> age of equipment? I'm too rusty to do it
> from memory. Do they even apply anymore?

My copy of the 1990 AAR Field Manual states in Rule 90, "Cars And/or Car Parts Prohibited In Interchange": Rule 90.3.1--"All freight cars built or rebuilt prior to January 1, 1950." Exception made for cars moving to scrappers under certain circumstances.

I doubt that they have kept the law so up-to-date that cars from pre-1964 are now barred, but.....



LNER4472-NOSPAM-@bcpl.net

> My copy of the 1990 AAR Field Manual states
> in Rule 90, "Cars And/or Car Parts
> Prohibited In Interchange": Rule
> 90.3.1--"All freight cars built or
> rebuilt prior to January 1, 1950."
> Exception made for cars moving to scrappers
> under certain circumstances.

> I doubt that they have kept the law so
> up-to-date that cars from pre-1964 are now
> barred, but.....

Title 49: Transportation
PART 215-RAILROAD FREIGHT CAR SAFETY STANDARDS
Subpart C-Restricted Equipment
215.203 Restricted cars.
(a) This section restricts the operation of any railroad freight car that is-
(1) More than 50 years old, measured from the date of original construction;
(2) Equipped with any design or type component listed in appendix A to this part; or
(3) Equipped with a Duryea underframe constructed before April 1, 1950, except for a caboose which is operated as the last car in a train.

The full text and procedure for exemption can be found at:
http://tinyurl.com/yq9ch

Ken Chenard



kchenard@SPAMearthlink.net

Back in the early '80's I worked at a power plant where we unloaded coal trains off Norfolk Southern. NS was moving coal in anything that would roll at the time, and N&W hoppers built as early as 1912 were not unusual. They had been rebuilt and are probably all gone now. Some of the best looking cars were those from the Virginian RR, which had been out of existance for some 23 years. The worst were any cars from the Nickle Plate or the Wabash. Those things were awful. One day a Wabash car with the sides seriously bulged out got stuck in the rotary dumper. Even after it was empty we had to beat on it with sledgehammers to get it out.
mw

I wonder how many revenue
> cars of this age are still in active service
> after 75 years. I still see hoppers built in
> the early 50's but usually used only as
> service equipment cars, not general
> interchange cars.


p_michael_warren@yahoo.com

The AAR Interchange Rules are not laws, but they are often stricter than the FRA Regulations, which do have the force of law. As noted in previous posts, the FRA Reg. about age only restricts the operation of the car, and additional paragraphs (not posted) tell how to get permission to operate a restricted car (which could be in violation of an AAR Rule!).

The AAR sometimes complains about roads that permit violation of its rules (including the age rule). Its almost like Road X grousing that Roads Y and Z allow the operation of a through steam excursion train with antique equipment!

TyburnRR@cs.com

>As far as I am aware you can use cars on your own (not-interchange) railroad that can have restrictions such as K brakes, cast-iron wheels, "T" section truck sideframes, are over-aged, have obsolete couplers that do not open automatically when pulling the "cut" lever, etc. If the car(s) are lettered "MW" for Maintenance of Way, they can even have safety defects and still be used in work trains.

Jack

nnry3@mwpower.net