Caught the first freight car paint project this morning recently completed by the members of the Western Maryland Scenic Railroad Foundation.

The 52-1/2' gondola was built in 1951 by the Pennsylvania Railroad and has served the PRR, Penn Central, Conrail, CSX and now the WMSR.

The WMSRF preformed some minor repairs, and restored this car to its original PRR keystone paint scheme and number #614470.

Work has started on repainting a second gondola... NKP #45500 series.

More Information can be found here:
https://www.facebook.com/events/703050789763591/

The WMSR Foundation's main page:
https://www.facebook.com/WmsrFoundation

First-rate work on this one. Really nice. And goes well / looks right with 734 and the "new one".

Howard P.

I love that it hasn't been completely fixed up, so it still retains the "working freight car" look.

Great work!

That PRR gondola sure looks sharp, although I'd rather see their next Repaint go back to ACL, like it once was. However, I understand they'd rather have eastern roads for their photo freights.

"ATLANTIC COAST Line" is not "eastern"??? Southeastern, certainly, but Eastern, at any rate.

Is the NKP lettering not correct for that car, it's actually an ACL car? Freight cars roamed around; in many of Beebe's "Mixed Train Daily" pics of shortlines, there's usually a PRR X-29 in the train!

Why not do the WMSR cars as they originally were? Why fake it?

Howard P.
Reformed Faker, Conn.

The question concerning the paint scheme has already been asked......... THESE ARE NOT MY ANSWERS........

Reply for the WMSR Foundation Facebook page.

1) Nickel Plate cars were more common on the WM,
2) NKP has a more photogenic paint scheme,
3) the car is similar to NKP cars
4) drawings are more available for NKP paint schemes than ACL paint schemes (I was informed CSX took all the records for freight cars used in CSX MoW service)
5) NKP was a more local railroad than ACL.

https://www.facebook.com/WmsrFoundation

Well, I guess I would vote to have the car repainted as Atlantic Coast Line too. But of course, I don't have a vote. What's rather interesting is that we have a car at HVRM that is painted as NKP #45622. The car had been built as Wheeling & Lake Erie #45622, then was NKP 45622, then N&W 45622 and finally (when it came to Hoosier Valley) as N&W 547522. I favored repainting it as W&LE, but got voted down. Yes, the Nickel Plate ran through Starke County where the museum is located and yes, the NKP paint scheme (with the Nickel Plate Road lettering) is more interesting than the rather "plain" W&LE lettering. Still, how many W&LE cars are preserved? We have other Nickel Plate equipment at the museum, but nothing from the old W&LE. Oh well, you can't win them all!

Les

PRR/PC actually interchanged with WM not that far from where the car was photographed. The freight station was along Mechanic Street where the parking lot for WMSRR is today.

The PRR/PC rail line was a victim of Hurricane Agnes in 1972.

I want to second Ed K's remarks. Provided she's painted and preserved as such, the "used" look only enhances photo freights and the accuracy of period trains. Loading it with scrap and providing drainage would be the next best enhancement.
Wonderful work.

Perhaps I could've worded that better, I understand that the ACL was an eastern road. I've just always been a fan of things going back to the original paint & lettering for that piece. Perhaps that ACL/SAL/SCL societies couldn't provide info for that car series. I still think it would be neat of they decided to Repaint their ex Conrail ballast hoppers back into their predecessor roads paint instead of WM paint. I know of an original WM boxcar in Sidney, Ohio that would look smashing in the WMSR photo freight.

As I am to understand it, the original collection of WMSR charter freight equipment was accumulated in the mid-1990s by the WMSR management at the time having a standing offer to the nearby CSX Cumberland car shops to pay a token fee--something like $250, I was told back in the 1990s--to acquire any freight car that Cumberland came into that might fit the period and was being withdrawn for scrap. At least one other car, possibly two or three (the Domino Sugar covered hopper, for one) was "deaccessioned" to them from the B&O Museum. The post-Conrail split of Conrail equipment to CSX and NS gave them a few more possibilities around the 2000 time frame. I would suggest that those days are now gone, and you won't have anything showing up at Cumberland "old" enough to pass for a steam photo freight anymore.

Paying "scrap value" or thereabouts for something that's "across the street" and gets delivered on its own wheels onto your own track is simply a "no-brainer," and the WMSR was lucky to get what it did. Is it worth tens of thousands to relocate, repaint, and restore a box car from Ohio or Virginia? Not for a couple photo freights, but maybe movie work combined with donations from the WM Railway Historical Society......

Painting the ACL car in a non-authentic paint scheme irritates me, too, but I sure didn't get a say either. I'm guessing that the WMSR Foundation never even actually checked for diagrams with the ACL/SAL Railroads Historical Society, which I've found in the past to be quite a competent and thorough historical society......

On behalf of the WMSR and WMSR Foundation, thank you for the compliments regarding our PRR gondola. The car has already proven popular, as the car was requested for use during filming for the movie "Ithaca"; a Meg Ryan movie that had scenes filmed here on the WMSR last week.

Regarding the repainting of our next car into NKP colors, while painting a car in a non-original owner paint scheme may bother some people, there is a simple business decision behind the choice of road name. The person financially sponsoring the restoration desired the NKP paint scheme (within certain parameters) and was not interested in ACL.

If someone else would like to sponsor other, upcoming freight car restoration projects, our basic stipulations are:

1) Roadnames that were common over the WM.
2) Paint schemes that are appropriate for the 1940's and 50's.
3) The equipment to be painted must resemble equipment owned by the railroad for which the paint scheme is desired (e.g. no NYC flexi-van's painted N&W).
4) Detailed drawings of the proposed paint scheme must be available for study and duplication.

Donations of equipment appropriate to the aforementioned stipulations will be considered, provided the equipment is delivered to the WMSR. Given our work with the #1309, we are unable to consider accepting donations of equipment that will cost significant time and effort to get to the WMSR. And yes, the WMSR is a 501(C)(3) non-profit corporation.

We appreciate the sponsor coming forward to assist us in the restoration of our freight car fleet, and I hope this helps to explain factors behind the decision process.

M. Gresham
General Superintendent
WMSR

Oh Les? You DO have another Wheeling car at HVRM: your steel MOW boxcar! Check the truck castings. :-)

Actually, I'd LOVE to see you guys get rid of the durned windows in the sides and return her to an original Wheeling, revenue appearance. I'll help with lettering details.
(who do you think is helping with NKP lettering on a gon?)

Ray -

100 lashes with the wet noodle for me! Of course we have that old Wheeling & Lake Erie boxcar (W&LE #25310) at Hoosier Valley. My bad! We've repainted the car in its NKP gray paint twice now. I put the NKP X58538 lettering on it the first time, but have not gotten around to doing it after this latest repainting. Another project yet undone! I can recall seeing the original W&LE reporting marks and the road number through the peeling green N&W MofW paint before it was repainted gray the first time. If you can convince the Board to plate over the windows on the car, I'll help you letter it for the Wheeling! But not much chance of that happening I think, as the car is used as our lunch car and the windows come in handy for lighting and for the occasional Indiana breeze that might waft through.

Les

The WMSRF will be having a volunteer work weekend starting tomorrow. Maintenance on 734, freight car restoration, and signal prep are all on-tap. Anyone interested in participating or looking for more information can contact info@wmsrf.org.