After many months of leg work and prep. PRR 497310 will be preserved. The move came on Friday, January 27. The boxcar was lifted by Sautter Crane Rental of Phila. PA at Amtraks Morrisville, PA yard and trucked to the Black River & Western R.R. by W. J. Casey of Branchburg, NJ. Restoration will begin in the spring.

Photos of the move can be found at,

http://www.prrllc.com/projects_x31a.html

Thanks to the cooperation of some nice folks at Amtrak this would not have been possible and another piece of railroad history would have gone to the scrapper.

If anyone has any photos of this car before it sat a Morrisville please let me know, thanks.

Scott Kwiatkowski

Scott-

Beautiful car in what appears to be excellent shape. Wish we had one like it at our museum! We wish the BR&W success in their restoration of this historic car.

Les Beckman (Hoosier Valley Railroad Museum/North Judson, Indiana)

Dear Scott,

Thank you for sharing - this is a great project. I am glad that at least ONE of these cars was saved. Up until about 5 years ago there were many cars like this along the corridor in Amtrak's company service - in various capacties. Many of them were sacrificed in a massive scrap drive that commenced with David Gunn's tenure - something that the publicly touted as progress.

Tom Cornillie

Great save! Wish we had one! We at the Pemberton Township Historic Trust are falling all over our spare parts. We desperately need a box car. No, let me rephrase that. We desperately need funding for a box car. I wish I could hit the lottery. We have both of our dry cabooses full to the doors. And our section house is so jammed full, it really makes it tough to do any restoration work. I find it much easier just to transport my tools for work. Did you get the trucks with the car?

Later!
Mr. Ed

I did get the trucks. If you click on the link above you will see one of the trucks hanging from the crane. They where in good shape.

The boxcar is owned by me and BR&W RR is where I store it.

Just like my N5 I will paint it with a good quality industrial paint which will be applied by a roller or brush. Prep work prior to paint is key. Lettering is done with vinyl. Some out there might not agree with the painting and lettering. However, I think this is the easiest and cheapest way to get an 70 or 80 year old car looking new again.

Scott

Scott,

I am happy to hear of an individual effort to save another "lowly" boxcar. Rare as it may be. It seems too frequently we work to preserve passenger equipment, and neglect the freight cars. (There are obvious exceptions, of course!)

Several posts back (days ago) I mentioned what Thronateeska Heritage Center is working toward. We have thus far completed 2 boxcar restorations using vinyl lettering, and lettering on Georgia Northern 107 is also vinyl. To help assure a bit longer life while exposed to the elements, we clear-coated the cars after the lettering was applied. This should seal the letters and prevent edge curl. I am extremely happy with the results after the first full year of exposure.

We also had vinyl stencils cut to letter one car with painted lettering, but it added a couple more steps (and time = $) to the process, so from that point on we have used the vinly lettering. Future restorations will likely follow the same process.

Good luck with your preservation efforts, and please keep us posted on your progress!

There is actually a lot of steam-era precedent for this. Canadian National's "tilted wafer" was applied to steam locomotive tenders as a decal - in fact, on some tenders certain rivets were countersunk to keep the decal smooth (see Strasburg 0-6-0 31's tender). Dave Spiegelman sent us a pair of decals made to the original specs by the original manufacturer when we painted CNR 89 in 2003.

CB&Q also applied their Burlington Route "Trade Mark" as a decal.

A coat or two of varnish sealed it just as you describe.

Scott, that box sure would look good on the other side of the river in New Hope - give Paul a call . . .

JAC

I painted our N5C with a roller and it came out OK. I need to redo the north side of the car since I got dirt in the paint.

Have you found roller bearing trucks for your N5 yet Scott.

Later!
Mr. Ed

Dear Scott,

Whatever lettering method or style you choose, I hope that you will document the remaining lettering (and other markings) with photos and tracings. The lettering can provide a great deal of information on where and how the car was used over its lifetime. While the number of preserved freight cars continues to grow, only a small number of restorations have been accompanyed by any documentation. As a result we are losing an opporunity to record this history as it actually existed vs. recreating what we think it was.

Tom Cornillie

here's my two cents. While brush or roller may or may not be "correct" for the show crowd, My hat's off to anyone that takes their time,effort, and $$$$ to save a piece of history. Thanks for the info, and please keep us updated.
Dave

Dave,

I think you missed a $, just kidding. I can profrom most of the work myself, that's where I save $$$.

Tom,

Yes, I have done some photo documetation and notes.

Mr. Ed

No, I have not found a set of RB trucks yet. I almost got a set from a N5c in Conrail colors that was a "ghost in the system". However, when I tried to get the trucks and I was willing to buy the whole car. A less then honorable representative from Shared Assets had NS sell the car to the scrapper. NS did not know it exsisted until I told them. Which in turn the scrapper canablized it for a historical group instead of saving the whole thing. As it turned out the Shared Assets representative was connected to this group. Unfoutunatly, this group has not restored anything yet and just continues to collect stuff and let it rot or rust away. Along with the N5c a PRR all cast flat car and 3 hoppers, two still in EL colors was scrapped also. I was trying to get one of the hoppers also.
This is a VERY sore subject with me because this organization has undermined or has tried to undermine other restoration efforts.

O.K. enough of my soap box

Thanks for all of your encouragement.

Scott

I would like to discuss this matter with you.

Please Contact me at Eric.Levin@Conrail.com

Thank you,

E.B. Levin
Supt. Motive Power & Mechanical Policy
Consolidated Rail Corporation

Scott:

Your statement contains many errors, but I understand that since they were made based on assumptions rather than actual conversations. This response is to open a line of communication to clear the air.

You are correct that the rolling stock in South Plainfield was not on any list that NS had. But hey, it was so far off of the road and buried by vegetation that it was easy to lose. It was so far back that the last car, a hopper was off of the siding in the dirt! Your call to NS triggered the sale of the equipment since it was deemed scrap. It was NS that contacted their scrapping firm, not the guy in shared assets. He is not connected with us. He was doing what he was told, his job. And once it was sold to the scrapper, the only way to rescue it was to buy it from them. They had a schedule to keep and nothing was going to change that including waiting for us or anybody else for that matter, to raise funds to purchase and move the cars. They are in scrap metal, not rolling stock preservation. They were gracious enough to allow us to cannibalize the N5C for small stuff, ladders, windows, etc. And we had to remove the stuff ourselves. Trucks weigh way too much and with the price of scrap what it is today, they were worth more in scrap. And yes, it was sad to see the EL hopper and the cast steel flat car go to the torch. But as I said, they are in scrap, not preservation.


You were almost right when you say that they, the Pemberton Township Historic Trust, do not restore anything. The N5C at our site was delivered in '99 and all of the rust was cut out and replaced immediately. Then the volunteers that were working on the car lost interest. Check around with other museums and see if this isn't a problem they all suffer from. And I would be interested to know what other restoration efforts we have undermined. Again I think this statement was made based on assumptions.

I am a new volunteer doing restoration work at the Pemberton Township Historic Trust since November of last year. I am working on the N5C that you want the trucks off of. I sanded, primed and painted the car before the weather got cold. I also put the round windows in and am in the process of getting the cupola windows in so we can get the car weatherized. I am also working on The N6B and assisting in work on the GE 100 ton center cab diesel. We took all of the rotting wood off of the N6B last winter and had it sandblasted and primed but it came back too late to paint. That is first on the list of things to do once the weather warms up enough to start painting again. We are pressure testing the air lines on the diesel in the process to get it running in the spring.

We work off of volunteers sweat and donations to get things done just as many museums do. And yes, there are a lot of things we want to do but the funds do not permit this. And I would rather see rolling stock sitting in a location awaiting restoration rather than it be torched, wouldn't you?

So now let's get down to business. You want a set of rolling bearing trucks with brakes so you can put your N5 on the mainline. We need a box car for storage. What do have to offer? And as an alternative, we do have a set of roller bearing trucks with no brakes or brake hardware if that would work for you. They would require finding hardware and fabricating mounting plates for your N5 but I just want to throw it out there as an altrenative.

And since you made your statements based on assumptions, we will let bygones be bygones. Just talk to us. We have been putting this museum together for a long time and have contacts in many locations just as I am sure you do. Let's work together rather than fight each other. I bet we get more done!

Later!
Mr. Ed

Ed:
I read this message several times and wondered if I should chime in or not. This thread and several others dealing with rolling stock preservation have been some of the best threads I have seen on this site in many months. Through open discussion maybe some solutions can be found in preserving the ever growing list of rolling stock in need of a home. I would like to add though that Scott is working on more than assumptions, but I'll leave it at that. We need to keep the focus and work together to prevent further torching of historic equipment. The recent losses described within recvent threads should not be acceptable.

J.R. May

So there is no misunderstanding of the facts regarding the equipment at South Plainfield I ordered the equipment disposed of. There was nothing in this group of equipment that I consider to be significant and I stand by that belief.

I had a discussion with Mr. Kwiatkowski today and made him aware of my thoughs as well as my displeasure with his remarks about a member of Conrail's staff presented on a public forum.

During the past ten years that I have been an Officer on the former Conrail Philadelphia Divison and now as a Staff Officer in the Shared Assets Organization, Conrail at my request or direction or the request of other Officers has donated a considerable number of significant freight car designs to various organizations.

The list includes but is not limited to:

PRR X-29 Boxcar - Ann St. Maintenance Facility to RRMofPA
PRR X-54 Boxcar - Midvale Yard to RRMofPA
H-34A Covered Hopper - Pavonia Yard to RRMofPA
TP-1 Rail Whale Tank Car - Pavonia Diesel Terminal to RRMofPA
G-39 Ore Jenny - Enola Car Shop to RRMofPA
Conway Wreck Derrick and Boom Car-Conway, PA to RRMofPA
Elkhart Wreck Derrick and Tender-Elkhart, IN RRMM (Altoona, PA)
Selkirk Wreck Derrick and Tender-Selkirk, NY to NNYCM (Elkhart, IN)
FD-2 "Queen Mary" Flat-Conway, PA to RRMM (Altoona,PA)
YB Scale Test Car-Holidaysburg, PA to RRMofPA
YB Scale Test Car-Holidaysburg, PA to RRMM (Altoona, PA)

Most of these moves required Conrail to expend significant expense in material, labor, or contract services (Cranes/Booms).

As actions speak louder than words there is no doubt in my mind that Conrail has acted as a responsible corporate citizen in the donation of retired equipment and it is a record that I am proud to be a part of.

Eric B. Levin
Superintendent Motive Power and Mechanical Policy
Conrail Shared Assets Organization