Western Railroad Discussion > Boxcar Train

Not sure what we're looking at here - a train of about 75-80 boxcars, mostly with BKTY reporting marks, hauled by a pair of SD70Ms eastbound on the South Morrill sub at MP 13, which is near the town of Sarben NE, 8/2/2026.  My guess is that these cars were in storage somewhere and are now headed to a scrapper.  If anyone knows for sure and/or has a symbol, please leave a comment.

mike woodruff
north platte ne

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Good? Did you see any kind of stickers on the cars that may have read. Do not Load or home shop for repairs?

Posted from Android

That train was the USNNPR 03. It consisted of 74 empty box cars that had been stored somewhere around Shawnee, WY. All of the cars except for four of them were BKTY cars, with WP 38082 and three CNW 156xxx cars mixed in for good measure. A decent number of the cars are moving directly to scrap, some to Progress Rail at Memphis, TN and others to Mervis Industries at Danville, IL.

Interesting catch.
JB

Many thanks to ble692 for that info.

mike woodruff
north platte ne

Another piece of W.P. Gone

Posted from Android

unit-shawnee wy-north platte ne-reposition ??
Sure makes for a nice looking train—good to see the SD70Ms
Brian Stevens

Posted from iPhone

All that graffiti spray paint going to waste. A real shame.

Mccloud-36 Wrote:
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> Another piece of W.P. Gone
>
> Posted from Android

Car probably aged out. The newest WP cars are now 44 years old!

Neat catch!

I am guessing the old 50 standard boxcars are slowly becoming history.

Most of the boxcars I see today. Are mostly the High-Cube 50 or 60 footers.

Jerry Martin
Los Angeles, CA
Central Coast Railroad Festival

When a shipper not on a rail line...and how many would that be?...can order a container trucked in, load it with product and deliver it by truck to a long-distance shipper, the value of boxcars has diminished rapidly, a trend that will continue into the future.

a737flyer Wrote:
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> When a shipper not on a rail line...and how many
> would that be?...can order a container trucked in,
> load it with product and deliver it by truck to a
> long-distance shipper, the value of boxcars has
> diminished rapidly, a trend that will continue
> into the future.

I disagree.  Boxcars can carry FAR MORE product by weight, and are money makers for the RR's.  The RR's are just lazy now, not wanting to switch customers, unless they are a BIG customer, and even then, the service is less than what it was.  Don't believe me?  Talk with shipping managers at food distribution centers, who ship HUGE quanties of heavy freight.

coach Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> a737flyer Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > When a shipper not on a rail line...and how
> many
> > would that be?...can order a container trucked
> in,
> > load it with product and deliver it by truck to
> a
> > long-distance shipper, the value of boxcars has
> > diminished rapidly, a trend that will continue
> > into the future.
>
> I disagree.  Boxcars can carry FAR MORE product
> by weight, and are money makers for the RR's.
>  The RR's are just lazy now, not wanting to
> switch customers, unless they are a BIG customer,
> and even then, the service is less than what it
> was.  Don't believe me?  Talk with shipping
> managers at food distribution centers, who ship
> HUGE quanties of heavy freight.

Every food distribution center that I have seen that was built in the last 30 years or so in Southern California was built on land that has no rail access.
It wasn't the railroads that made those decisions, it was the companies that built those distribution centers.

PHall Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> coach Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > a737flyer Wrote:
> >
> --------------------------------------------------
>
> > -----
> > > When a shipper not on a rail line...and how
> > many
> > > would that be?...can order a container
> trucked
> > in,
> > > load it with product and deliver it by truck
> to
> > a
> > > long-distance shipper, the value of boxcars
> has
> > > diminished rapidly, a trend that will
> continue
> > > into the future.
> >
> > I disagree.  Boxcars can carry FAR MORE
> product
> > by weight, and are money makers for the RR's.
> >  The RR's are just lazy now, not wanting to
> > switch customers, unless they are a BIG
> customer,
> > and even then, the service is less than what it
> > was.  Don't believe me?  Talk with shipping
> > managers at food distribution centers, who ship
> > HUGE quanties of heavy freight.
>
> Every food distribution center that I have seen
> that was built in the last 30 years or so in
> Southern California was built on land that has no
> rail access.
> It wasn't the railroads that made those decisions,
> it was the companies that built those distribution
> centers.

This would make sense as the railroads would have been well on their way to marginalizing out carload freight business, especially that traffic that could move via intermodal.  By this time period, businesses were already well on their way in abandoning using rail service and there wasn't much interest in having trackage to serve distribution centers.

I remember this time period well - the Class One railroads were quite happy in their success in driving "boxcar" freight to intermodal, but then only to discover there was an unintended consequence:  moving your business to intermodal made it ripe for competition from the trucking industry and the railroads discovered that the profit margins with intermodal were not nearly as good as those when they handled the freight directly with carload service.  "Coach" comment on how much more volume and weight you can get in a boxcar compared to a truck trailer was one of the primary benefits the railroads could sell their customers.

Great shot!!