Model Railroading > Buffer cars are quite a mixed bag.

I recently took delivery of a string of Scale Trains tank cars, this was prior to their announcemenmt of the Airslide hoppers. Two of the schemes being offered are for cars in 'buffer service' on oil or ethanol unit trains.
This piqued my interest because the similar cars from Tangent disappeared before I could even think about them. I want buffer cars for my train so I did some research into what the various roads are using...

Both Tangent and Scale Trains did the BNSF ones that have been painted mineral brown and say "Buffer Service Only - Do Not Load", Scale Trains also have gray Airslides lettered GACX with no other markings. My research shows both of these types being used along with a myriad of any other kind of covered hopper you can think of. What is interesting is seeing BNSF's dedicated cars showing up on the trains of all the competition, NS, UP, CSX, CP and CN.

There are a lot of old ADM cars being used as well as cars that no longer have any appreciable markings other than a couple initials and a road number. There's a shot of a CP ethanol trian using a MRL hopper as a buffer, a short line using a very old Rio Grande hopper, another equally old Southern Pacific hopper on a UP oil train and numerous other combinations which lead me to the conclusion that you can go with pretty well any old hopper you have in your collection of rolling stock and it will be legitimate. Me, I think I'm going to go with an old Atlas ACF 4650 three bay SP hopper that I found hiding at the back of my stack of cars...it will be a UP oil train so the SP car would make sense...

Any non-placarded car can work and some with placards are OK as well. Non-revenue cars are a good choice so cars destined to customers do not get "lost" in unit train operations.

Buffers loaded with inert materials are preferred so they don't get popped off the track if the train slack runs in.

When the MRL handles an oil train it comes to Laurel with a loaded buffer on each end between the road power on the head end and the DPU unit on the rear.

The train will encounter mountain grades over Bozeman Pass and Mullan Pass. Helpers will be cut into the train which will require a buffer on each end of the helpers and the loads of oil. The Laurel yard grabs a couple a couple of empty cars, boxcars, open hoppers, covered hoppers headed west and switches the pair into the train.

At Livingston a 4 unit helper set will cut in between the midtrain buffers and cut out at West End. At Helena another set of helpers cuts in between the buffers and stays in train to Elliston.

Before the oil train leaves Missoula a yard crew will take the two empty buffers out of the train so they can be attached to another train for travel west.

Posted from iPhone

If you are looking for BNSF buffer cars, Athearn has also announced the FMC 4700 in BNSF buffer car service:

http://www.athearn.com/Products/Default.aspx?ProdID=ATH81984
http://www.athearn.com/Products/Default.aspx?ProdID=ATH81983

I have been seeing a number of UP and MP ACF 4600s in buffer car service in the Oakland, CA area recently.  One of the MP cars even had a stencil noting that it was in buffer car service.  That was the first time I'd seen a dedicated UP buffer car.  A high quality ACF 4600 has been a popular request among modelers for a while, so I bet Scale Trains is kicking themselves for not doing a Rivet Counter ACF 4600 instead of an airslide as their buffer car.

You don't even need to use older cars as buffer cars.  When UP first started running ethanol trains into Oakland, I remember seeing mid-2000s built VeraSun Energy Trinity 6351s being used as buffer cars.

I've seen boxcars used too; one train had a box and hopper.

There is a U ADMWAT that runs to and from Cali with two EEAX open top hoppers of sand; #4629 & 4635

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BNSF oil trains down the Oregon Trunk were pretty normal trains going to California, but coming back they had to be half trains for fitting in passing sidings.  They would leave the buffers with half the train, and grab an available pair of cars to act as buffers.  One train seen had regular gondolas and another had empty auto racks on each end.  Now that would be unique on a layout on Occasion!

Rob

The attached shot is of FCEN Z903-26 with 3 units and 5 buffer cars that CSXT added. Everyone was surprised when it showed up with all the heasd end buffer cars. The train is approaching Eagle Lake, FL back when the unit Ethanol trains were a weekly event. After some time they were permitted to run the power that brought the train to Winter Haven, FL  and the road power was allowed to stay on the train. I caught a few with CSXT units.

Stanley Jackowski
Valrico, FL

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Stan,

The buffer rule is the placarded car shall be no nearer to the locomotive than the 6th car unless the entire train is made up of placarded cars then no buffer is required.

That requires a 5 car buffer if you have 5 cars in the train to use as buffers. If the train is like a short local picking up or delivering dangerous cars to a customer then it is not required to add cars to create a buffer. That was before 70-100 car trains of petroleum cars came to be common. Then it was decided to be prudent to add at least one buffer between the product and the power.

Placarded loads of diesel fuel, asphalt, sulfur and other commodities do not require buffer cars thus can be used as buffer cars if needed.

I think someone involved with setting up the train in your photos was working with the non unit train rules. If they added say a dozen non placarded cars to the train then 5 of those cars would need to be placed as buffer cars in the train. If the mixed train only has 3 cars without placards they must all be used as buffers but there is no requirement to add 2 more cars to create a 5 car buffer.

The unit trains of oil or alcohol have one car buffers on the end and in the middle for helpers account the railroads thought it was safer that way.

Posted



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/17/16 07:29 by fbe.

Early on with these unit trains it seemed like whatever was available was assigned as a buffer. Over time, cars dedicated to buffer service have become more common. I first saw BNSF's buffer-service Airslides about five years ago and now when I see a BNSF-originated oil or ethanol train it seems like it always has those. If I recall correctly, CP was even faster about assigning specific cars loaded with sand to buffer service, but those were older grain-type cars rather than Airslides. I don't recall any particular pattern with CN-originated trains, but in Ohio the oil trains are mostly from BNSF and CP origins. Trains delivered to NS early on tended to have just a head-end buffer so NS would have to add one on the rear in the Cleveland area -- usually done at Motor Yard at Macedonia, Ohio, right erie833? -- before it got to the helper districts east of there, and those rear-end buffers often seemed to be boxcars. Ethanol trains off the UP seemed to get "whatever" buffers from them, but grain cars have been most common, perhaps because these trains originate in grain country.

For a short time CP and NS were operating a run-through train that was mostly oil but had a short cut of general-freight traffic on the head end, probably stuff that CP and NS agreed to send along for the ride since it was going the same direction. This train ran as #12N on NS. I haven't seen or heard of it in quite a while.

I model the Twin Cities so this traffic is part of my modeled protottype, so I study it fairly hard, Up here on the Mississippi River where I live we see a bunch of these trains. As stated , the BNSF originated trains tend to use their own purpose assigned buffers, usually airslides, but also FMC (like the new Athearn) and PS type cars. Mostly brown, though I have seen a green airslide, but they are quite rare. The CP originated trains are more likely to have odd buffer cars, Likely connecting roads for these loads-some NS and CSX cars appear, and can be anything-covered hoppers are most likely, though boxcars, a coal hopper and even a gon have been seen. Some CP or SOO cars as well. Even have seen PGR or MWCX blue 62 foor beer or insulated cars. Have seen the Verasun Energy, though those could be ethanol trains. Need to see the placards to tell for sure   NS to BNSF trains may have their own NS hoppers, particularly if the train orginated off BNSF. UP, trains, depending on the orginating railroad, and they also originate their own loads in Colorado and elsewhere.

It's a good time to watch, and model these movements!

Dave Burman
modeling the modern Twin Cities
Trempealeau, WI

Here are some oil train photos I posted earlier with mid train buffers for helpers and a variety of cars in buffer service.

http://www.trainorders.com/discussion/read.php?1,3561431,3561433#3561433

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NS recently sent some NW and Southern 3 bay covered hoppers to the rock pit i switch and had them loaded with rock ! for buffer service. A simple Buffer Service was srayed on in Orange marking paint. 

At first it was thought loading the buffers with sand was a good idea since if there was a spill there would be a supply of 100 or more tons of sand on site to absorb any spill. Then it dawned on someone there was no way to easily unload sand from the car and no way to transport the sand from the buffer to the other part of the train where the spill would likely be. So rocks in the buffers seems as good an idea as any.






NSDTK Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> NS recently sent some NW and Southern 3 bay
> covered hoppers to the rock pit i switch and had
> them loaded with rock ! for buffer service. A
> simple Buffer Service was srayed on in Orange
> marking paint. 

Posted



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/17/16 14:00 by fbe.

Didn't think about mid train helpers over the passes....we see mostly 2X1 or 3x1 dpus on loads. If there isn't a dpu on an empty, sometimes we'll see two up front, or it will get added. La Crosse Wisconsin, where I'm from has a pool of BNSF buffer cars that can be added if needed when the train arrives here. Power can get real colorful on these trains-lots of CSX and NS, with occasional CN, KCS and UP on the BNSF. The CP is as likely to be foreign power as anything Red-all roads seem to get here with them.

Dave Burman
modeling the modern Twin Cities
Trempealeau, WI

Moon Dog Rail Cars has buffer car decals black and white.

http://www.moondograilcars.com/product_p/2514.htm

http://www.moondograilcars.com/product_p/2614.htm

 

Thanks for the link to the decals. On a lot of the hoppers that I have collected pictures of, there are no markings indicating "BUFFER SERVICE ONLY"...
...on the SP hopper I'm going to use it look like thay just used a black spray can and painted over the capacity markings below the car number, so I will duplicate that, along with some serious weathering...