Note, I am not by any means screaming the usual "We need to save this now!", just some Friday morning thoughts...

Has any group, saved any 1970's era Incentive Pier Diem boxcars? For those who do not know what I am talking about, see here:
http://tracksidetreasure.blogspot.com/2 ... -boom.html
http://www.trainweb.org/mccloudrails/Eq ... xcars.html

Just about every (and I mean there was ALOT!) of small shortline in the 1970's had vast fleets of these cars. Many had more cars then would actually fit on the railroad. These were pretty common to see right up until not all that long ago, of course patched out. Now that we are approaching the time where the cars are simply aging out, they are going away rapidly.

Have ANY of these been saved anywhere? (There was some other IPD cars, such as All Door Boxcars, and Covered Hoppers as well I think). Most of these cars had some rather colorful logos and writing on them.

They are literally being scrapped as we speak. I took this photo earlier this week:

So, I'm getting a message that "Sorry, the board attachment quota has been reached" while trying to attach a picture, so I'll have to post a link instead. Western Pacific Railroad Museum has in its collection at least two such cars, both donated by Itel Rail several decades ago. One is a former U.S. Plywood all door boxcar Itel rebuilt into a standard boxcar and then leased to the McCloud River Railroad right after they bought that road in 1977, and the other is a standard all door boxcar formerly leased to the Southern Railway of British Columbia, another Itel property. I have a picture of the converted all door car on my website at the following link, scroll down the page....the end of the SRY all door is just visible in the photo.

http://www.mccloudriverrailroad.com/Equ ... oxcars.htm

I don't remember right off hand if they have any of WP's old IPD boxcars on the property or not.

If there is any interest in trying to preserve any of these cars Wells Fargo would probably be the place to start in as much as they have probably the largest fleet of such cars, most of which they inherited a year or two ago when they bought GE Capital's railcar leasing business, which includes what's left of both the Itel and other IPD leaser fleets. The problem is that most of these cars are long gone, either scrapped or painted over or otherwise in increasingly poor condition. I still see on a fairly regular basis passing through Elko some single door 50-foot boxcars mostly from obscure midwest roads that are in canned or packaged food service from California to eastern markets, they also tend to show up on the California Northern and Modesto & Empire Traction. McCloud Railway has around ten old IPD boxcars on their road, most to all are patched over cars from various shortlines to which Itel once leased cars, though there is at least one Camino, Placerville & Lake Tahoe car body there, laying on its side though after a sideswipe accident about ten years back. Some of those could probably be obtained from the current owner (Midwest Pacific Railnet & Logistics), the problem would be getting them out of there...

Interesting topic, and thanks!

Jeff Moore
Elko, NV

I'm a bit surprised to see that, I recall reading an industry article fairly recently that many boxcars are reaching their age limit - to the point that they can't be replaced fast enough, and there was discussion of extending life to 60 years or more!

CD

The 50-foot, 70-ton, plate C boxcar is rapidly being phased out by the railroads. The retirement of older and economically obsolete equipment is accelerating with operating efficiencies derived from the industry's embrace of precision scheduled railroading (PSR) strategies.

Alan Maples
Everett Railroad

POSITIVE: Yes! This is a great opportunity to interpret a piece of railroading many visitors have actually seen, to get people in a piece of railroad equipment that's not a coach or converted concession car, and provide a big picture lesson on supply and demand.

NEGATIVE: As previously mentioned, railroads are phasing out the 50-foot boxcar due to poor economics some say is caused by poor operating practices. A new freight car is north of $100,000 now, and the typical boxcar makes only one turn or less a month. How can you justify the cost of capital with the current returns? Railroads want to push shippers to the 60-foot TTX pool cars, but shippers' docks aren't all setup for that size of car (specifically the door spacing).

DOWNRIGHT PEDANTIC: The Wisconsin Central car pictured really doesn't qualify as IPD as painted because the WC came to be after the craze had subsided and because it had real online customers that needed boxcars. Many IPD-owning roads didn't have a customer that could use the cars or even enough track to store them if they all came home to roost during a recession.

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