International Railroad Discussion > Let's Roster Stuff at Cerrillos Chile 4/20/19

On Saturday, April 20, we hit last light at Cerrillos (as we drove east to Calama). Luckily the FCAB obliged us with one last train. While I think this was the 1250 MINBOL loads west, that should have been an all boxcar train, so the cathodes and sulfuric acid tanks on the bank have me unsure. This train came to a stop at Cerrillos where there was a crew change. The driver who brought the crew apparently didn't know what railfans were as he proceeded to copy down our license plate numbers before he left. Nothing came of that, but it was annoying still. 

The train had two of the home kitbashed GT22UC-3s sandwiching an NF210. I am told by a friend in the know that the GT22UC-3s are the equivilent of SD39-2s (but with a haircut from their mom). 

As the new crew took off, I noted the light and decided I'd take some extra frames and roster stuff (same friend who told me about the SD39-2s gets angry when I use roster as a verb, but that's life).

First two images are the train arriving in Cerrillos. Third image is a roster of the lead GT22UC-3.

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Next three images are boxcars, two Bolivian and one Chilean. 

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Last two images (as the light was actually dropping during the train's passage) are a copper cathode flat and a sulfuric acid tank.

 

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Thanks for the great series of photos.

Bob Krieger
Cheyenne, WY

Due to lighter rail, NF210 and the G22C 2001 (both around 105 tonnes), don't go east of Conchi.

This is the evening "sweeper", the train has cleaned out the San Salvador Yard.

Security dictates that loaded cars are not held at San Salvador overnight.

FCAB has sufficient problems with cathode copper being purloined off moving trains, without tempting fate in the un-fenced San Salvador.

Any idea if the boxcars are US built, the design other than the doors are very US.

Sorry, I have no idea on where they are built. 

Here's the future GT22UC-3 #2408 six years ago.  Program was discontinued and 2408 never advanced beyond this.  It was cut up last November.

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Do you have any idea of the weight of one of those copper plates?

CM80-46 Wrote:
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> Any idea if the boxcars are US built, the design
> other than the doors are very US.

They are probably built in Brazil by Cobrasma (now, I believe, Maxion/Greenbrier), who have been US-licensed/partially owned for many years, and thus have access to US designs, which they can then adapt for local use (see Pedro Rezende's posts on this board, many of which show a variety of US-type cars built for use in Brazil).

Roger Lewis (airbrakegeezer).

airbrakegeezer Wrote:
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> CM80-46 Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
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> > Any idea if the boxcars are US built, the
> design
> > other than the doors are very US.

They have been around for decades

FCAB has not purchased boxcars since the late Andronico Luksic purchased control of the company (from British institutional investors) in 1979.

In 2007 the FCA car shop at Uyuni (at that date FCA was controlled by FCAB), cut down around 100 boxcars into flats for the Mina San Cristobal contract.

On the FCAB boxcars are now only used for Bolivian artisan miner concentrate, so only used between Ollague and Portezuelo (the Puerto de Antofagasta facility just north of the Estacion).

FCAB was cash strapped from the start of the Allende's Socialist/Marxist regime in 1971. so the newest of the FCAB cars possibly date back to the '60's.

What is now FCA was formally the Bolivian State Railways. Prior to 1996 was run by bureaucrats, propped up by subsidies. Had a history of poor management and illogical purchases.