Nostalgia & History > Rock Island Lives? You Betcha!

Check out this nifty little Rock Island beauty spotted on February 26th at Utah Railway's yard in Provo. The vintage 1968 Airslide covered hopper was among a cut of five former CRI&P cars. One of them had the "Route Rock" slogan. The pictured car was in the most pristine condition of the five.

How could a car built way back in 1968 survive this long without being tagged?

James

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Beautiful - I wonder if a clue to this lies in the fact that no number or reporting mark is visible. If this is not photoshopped, I would guess it sat on somebody's dead track for a long time. To my surprise, there does appear to be an AEI transponder mounted on the side sill! Captive service maybe? -- -- -- -- -- JLH

highgreengraphics Wrote:
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> Beautiful - I wonder if a clue to this lies in the
> fact that no number or reporting mark is visible.
> If this is not photoshopped, I would guess it sat
> on somebody's dead track for a long time. To my
> surprise, there does appear to be an AEI
> transponder mounted on the side sill! Captive
> service maybe?

No photoshopping of the slide. I noticed the lack of a car number but not at the time of the photo. I just examined the slide through a magnifier and noticed that the right hand car is lettered JTMX 10082 on the upper end. Does this offer any clues?

The car lacks reporting marks because it is part of a drawbarred pair. They have been showing up on BNSF trains east of Needles for the past year. Some like this one, some with very bad Rock Island paint and some repainted many years ago and looking as bad as many of the C&NW Rock repaints.

JTMX is JTM Industries, Inc. of Kenesaw, GA, and deals nearly exclusively in fly-ash, the waste product of coal burning powerplants. It is used most often now as a concrete fortifier. They are connected with ISG Resources, Inc., which is listed with Headwaters Resources, Inc, of South Jordan, UT. Headwaters makes Flex Crete aerated concrete, made by utilizing "high volumes of fly ash". You may see pictures of the car's sisters (apparently before being drawbarred with others to get a single-car rate), on RRPicture Archives.net. So I would say they are carrying fly ash, which probably moves pretty well from a pressurized Airslide car, originally developed for bulk flour, which is about the same density. I would bet they go between a power plant in Nevada and South Jordan, not much population density there for wielding spray cans. All this was found simply internet searching. Interestingly, the two I inquired to a friend about, JTMX 10053 and 10082, do not show up as being recognized by UP. The pictures on the RRPicture site also show a 10055 and 10064, but not a 10082. Does that help any? -- -- -- -- -- -- JLH

highgreengraphics Wrote:
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> Does that help any?
> JLH

Awesome! Thank you for all the great information.

James

GrandeGold Wrote:
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> How could a car built way back in 1968 survive
> this long without being tagged?


Its obviously never been to L.A.

Dang, Bill, you beat me to it!!