Eastern Railroad Discussion > Ma & Pa

I don't often post to the Eastern board as the only eastern stuff I see is passing thru. But here's one from yesterday in York Pa. It was good to see it even without it's trucks. I remember seeing these as a kid in York.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/01/16 07:34 by misty1.

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Nice catch is that the yorkrail yard?

Yep also got the 1754

The Maryland & Pennsylvania Railroad (Ma & Pa) was purchased in 1971 by a conglomerate called Diversified Properties and shortly thereafter changed their name to Emons Industries, Inc.  In 1976 Emons moved its headquarters from New York to York, Pennsylvania and began to rebuild bad-ordered box cars that they had acquired from the former Penn Central Co.  This business was successful and so in 1977 Emons erected a car shop building on the York Terminal Property and they began to construct new box cars.  You must remember that there was a shortage of quality box cars among the class I railroads and these railroads began to lease box cars from many other companies.  Emons built a fleet of cars and all of them were lettered as The Maryland & Pennsylvania Railroad Co. with the reporting marks MPA.  This proved to be a profitable business for some years; however as the railroad industry continued to change, the demand for leased box cars also declined.  Your photo is one of those box cars built by Emons during the late 1970's.  Thanks for posting and sharing it.
​John in White Marsh, Maryland

John I knew about Emmons and that they were building cars. I still lived in York until 79. They also built cars carrying reporting marks of CPAA.