Western Railroad Discussion > SP 517551, How many of these are left roaming around?

I caught this SP autorack still with SP reporting marks in Friday evening's last light. Just curious how many of these are still floating around in the autorack pool? I see plenty of SP speed lettering racks with trailer train reporting marks roaming around but hardly any of the good old SP era racks.
Brian V.

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Nice catch, there can't be many left.  I know most autoracks were on Trailer Train flatcars, how many railroads were like SP and owned the entire thing?

Nathan

So in rough numbers, there are about 230 autoracks left on the UP with SP reporting marks. It would be impossible to know how many are still in their original SP paint, versus those with SP speed lettering or UP paint. The cars are found in the SP 516xxx, 517xxx, and 518xxx numbers.

There are also about 40 autoracks left on the UP with SSW reporting marks. Again it would be impossible to know how they break down paint wise. These cars are in the SSW 805xx, 806xx, and 807xx numbers.

All of these cars are going away, so if you see one do take a picture. By 2029 these autoracks will be gone from revenue service on the UP. In fact by 2030 there will be very few SP or SSW cars of any sort left in revenue service on the UP, outside of the SP 365xxx series gondolas.

Interestingly, about 30+ SP & SSW autoracks have had their racks removed by the UP after which they have been assigned to MOW service as flat cars for track panels. The cars retain their SP or SSW numbers and were otherwise heading for scrap as their revenue service days were over.

Also out there roaming the rails are some autoracks with ETTX and TTGX reporting marks but sporting SP speed lettering. Don't have a number on how many of these there are, and they aren't owned by the UP, but a little bit of the SP still lives with them.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 11/03/25 10:43 by ble692.

ble692 Wrote:
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> So in rough numbers, there are about 230 autoracks
> left on the UP with SP reporting marks. It would
> be impossible to know how many are still in their
> original SP paint, versus those with SP speed
> lettering or UP paint. The cars are found in the
> SP 516xxx, 517xxx, and 518xxx numbers.
>
> There are also about 40 autoracks left on the UP
> with SSW reporting marks. Again it would be
> impossible to know how they break down paint wise.
> These cars are in the SSW 805xx, 806xx, and 807xx
> numbers.
>
> All of these cars are going away, so if you see
> one do take a picture. By 2029 these autoracks
> will be gone from revenue service on the UP. In
> fact by 2030 there will be very few SP or SSW cars
> of any sort left in revenue service on the UP,
> outside of the SP 365xxx series gondolas.
>
> Interestingly, about 30+ SP & SSW autoracks have
> had their racks removed by the UP after which
> they have been assigned to MOW service as flat
> cars for track panels. The cars retain their SP or
> SSW numbers and were otherwise heading for scrap
> as their revenue service days were over.
>
> Also out there roaming the rails are some
> autoracks with ETTX and TTGX reporting marks but
> sporting SP speed lettering. Don't have a number
> on how many of these there are, and they aren't
> owned by the UP, but a little bit of the SP still
> lives with them.
Thanks for the information! There are a few CSX rack trains that pass me daily and I try and shoot cars when I can, mainly for graffiti, but do watch for fallen flags.  Toyota at Princeton, IN and a plant down south is where these cars go to & fro.
Caught this one yesterday(Sunday). The speed lettered ones(ETTX & TTGX) do seem to be more common to catch.

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SSW 80519 taken on 8-21-24

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Alot