@@Southern_Plains_Railfan do as many videos as you can I loved the one I saw. Goin to Scranton next week unless the government shuts down then they close to the public
When I started hopping freights in the mid 1970s, you could always find an open box car, car carriers were open air, hopper cars had plenty of hidey-holes, and every train had a caboose. Also, atitudes toward letting a wanderer have a free ride were relaxed. For example, in the fall of 1979 north of Eau Claire, Wisconsin, I was running for a Soo Line and when the engineer saw me, he stopped the train and invited me to ride in the engine cab! Most incredible thing I ever experienced. Well the Soo Line and many others are long gone and little by little, all those things I mentioned above have disappeared, including the lax attitudes. After 9/11, if you even thought about hanging out around a freight yard, you instantly aroused the attention of police. Back in 2011, I was crossing a railroad bridge on foot over the Missouri River and by the time I got to the other side there was a K-9 unit ready to take me in. That's the last time I was even close to the rails, but I certainly enjoyed this video.
I'm from Dayton, Ohio, and recently saw that ICBM boxcar at the Airforce Museum (next to Wright Patt) on a trip I made to visit family. I always thought it was cool, but terrifying at the same time!
Here in Brazil we had a peculiar boxcar, it was a former ALCo FA-1 that got involved in a collision and lost it's nose, so the shops took the wreck shortened the frame cutting the cab and radiator sections and turned it into a engine block mover, they cut a hole in the roof to make loading and unloading easy and kept the iconic FA trucks, and entire ALCo 244 or 251 engine could be carried on the original engine mounting brackets, there were conversion brackets for other engine types too like ALCo 539, GE 7FDL, EMD 567 and 645.
Penn Central did the same thing with an F-7. Its purpose was to transport rebuilt 12-567s from Altoona shops to the DeWitt shops for use in the RS-3m rebuild/repower program
I worked for the railroad from 1970 to 90s as an Agent dispatcher on our road which was a short line of 54 Mi was the scale car because they used to drop one off once a year for certified scales and we had one of the old slidebar scales so anyway I never knew there were so many different unique cars out there and thanks for showing them to us and it's amazing how some of them looked and how they worked so thanks again we appreciate it and me as being an old dog you can show an old dog new tricks.!
I live close to WPAFB and had no idea it was over there! Where is it on base? Can the public see it? They ought to put it down at the National Museum of the USAir Force there if that is even possible.
@@karlwithak. Source, please? I find it rather strange that nothing can be found on the internet about such a rail car, or any model of 40mm that came in a triple mount. Considering the most commonly used twin mount 40mm with high capacity continuous ammo feed weighs 6 tons (minus ammo) and is so bulky as to be mounted only aboard ships, I find it rather dubious to think 22 mounts would fit on a railcar, not to mention the impossibility of giving any of them more than a few degrees arc of fire. And as a veteran who was involved with antiaircraft systems, I'd like to know how 286 of these could be built without my ever hearing about it. I think perhaps you have been misled by some photoshopped HO gauge toy that someone has claimed to he real. BTW, the M-579 is an armored recovery vehicle.
The winglets for the B-1 bomber were shipped in the tallest railcar built at the time. They had a bridge clearance that necessitated a specific route. In aircraft, tolling is usually stored someplace. These cars are probably near Palmdale, ca. Note here that the box was lifted off to load and unload.
@@Southern_Plains_Railfan I agree with him. I'm under the impression that there are old European cars that have only 4 wheels with no trucks, so I would appreciate learning about those.
There was a six axle stainless steel hopper car called "Stainless Whopper Hopper". According to Wikipedia, it is on display along the Rocky Mount (Amtrak station) and Bus Depot in Rocky Mount in North Carolina.
Very interesting! I’m a total railcar nerd but even I hadn’t heard of some of these. You could make a whole episode on tank cars alone- specialized cargo calls for specialized cars, of which there are many. Tiny 2300-gallon bromine tanks, 8-axle glycol tanks, the interconnected TankTrain... the possibilities are endless!
I enjoyed the mention of the RailWhales too, though I think calling them failures isn't exactly correct. In a similar style to the Big John hopper, mega-size tankers were on the rise throughout the 60's, and it was actually government regulation that got them yanked off the tracks, mostly to prevent a snowball effect of massive costs to upgrade rails infrastructure to handle them safely. UTLX made a successful 50k gallon tanker much earlier that ran in revenue service for many years, and it even resided in a museum for a time, but sadly Hurricane Ike destroyed it some time ago.
A mile-long string of 40' tankcars just warms my heart, i useta watch 'em go up the Hudson past the Tappan Zee. Sidebay cabooses, crane cars, reefers, all kinds of passenger cars (ages back 2 something Lincoln could have travelled in), different lengths, & FLATCARS: love 'em all.
@@sirmetaladonMore specifically, UTLX 83699 floated off its trucks in the storm surge and was carried onto an adjacent property. Supposedly the museum couldn't afford to hire a contractor to move the car back (or more likely were unable to raise funds in time), and the car had to be scrapped in-place. To this day I wonder if the museum could have saved the car prior to the storm's arrival by opening the unloading ports and allowing the car to flood from the bottom-up. That might have kept it in-place despite the storm surge.
@@RailRide One can dream. Given a sparse 10 real photos exist of the car online (trust me, I 3d modeled the car; I looked), it would have been nice to take a day trip and see it for myself!
Canadian National also had an articulated hopper type, instead of shortening a hopper it looks like their idea was to split a hopper in half and add a bogie in the middle.
The military brought one of those Peacekeeper missle cars to Alaska in the late 80s. It was stored at Elmendorf AFB with the idea of converting it to a "mobile" command post. The car was too heavy to ride the rails in Alaska and it was then shipped back to the lower 48 in the early 90s.
Your videos never cease to amaze, with your encyclopedic knowledge brought to bear on the subject matter! Think I said so on another of your videos: your channel is my absolute favourite among the many railfan sites I follow. I don’t know how you do so much but your efforts are sincerely appreciated. Keep the episodes coming my friend!!
On those small whale belly cars at 1:40, I wonder if they were used for industries that wanted to load directly into above ground silos. You have a blower that blows air to push material through a line and up to the top of a silo. I worked at a place that received flour from semi trucks that had onboard blowers to go up the lines to the top of the silos. You don't want that dumped out into grates under the hopper, and it's too fine for a grain drill to move it without a mess.
Honorable mention goes to the small "bobber" 4-wheeled cabooses used on the BC hydro railway. They were a small short-line caboose which didn't have sleeping accomodation. The Canadian Pacific used the "shorty" caboose which was employed on the switchbacks around Trail, BC. Using a shorter caboose meant that an extra revenue car could fit on the switchback track.
Forgot the rebuilt boxcars converted into mobile bunkhouse, and the combination boxcar on one end and flatbed on the other. This mod was used for maintenance at remote locations for material storage (covered and uncovered) for track repairs. A nother example was being used for a firefighting pumpcar with a monitor , hose reels, and a manifold for water distribution in forest fire suspension. Normally, we're connected in a combination with surplus tank cars for firefighters' water supply .
I have seen a few of these in person (the scale test cars being the most common). Thanks for letting us know about examples that are still on display - I'm adding them to my travel list
I used to see triple crown trailers all the time at different gm plants in Michigan and surrounding states, looked them over pretty closely. Saw the trains occasionally in Indiana. Pretty strange looking.
Here's something that I've seen several times viewing at the shared UP - BNSF mainline between Portland Oregon and Seattle. It's not really a rail car but even though there were a lot of them produced, seeing one in service always brought the same question - What kind of a locomotive with no cab is that??? Johnnie that's what they call a Slug!! I've also personally seen the DOD's white train when it was (I'm guessing here) bringing in the missiles for the submarines at Bangor (near the Navy's base at Bremerton Washington) once construction on the naval sub base was complete. I saw armed guards and some with dogs too. So whatever was on that train was being heavily guarded and protected. So it was no secret what that train was carrying. Anyway you have some very well done and interesting videos here!!! And I hope you keep making them!
I really like the way you gave great details based on your narrative skills about the strange railcars. I just now subscribed your channel. Keep up the great work!👍
I would love a sequel of this! The Oklahoma Railway Museum you mentioned also has a unique MKT inspection car made out of a boxcar. That was really neat to see when I went out there.
I love trains and I can tell u certainly do and the way u have explained these different train cars ect is brilliant I can understand everything ur saying this is a gr8 channel and I will be watching and enjoying more videos and learning a lot about this stuff every time I watch them , a massive godbless to you sir, x
The BN (and older Pacific Great Eastern) ‘bopper’ cars that were designed to handle both grain and general merchandise service are worth a look. Several BN examples are preserved in Duluth, Minnesota.
There was also a "TankTrain" that had interconnected tank cars so many tank cars could be load or unloaded from one connection. There used to be one set in storage on the old DT&I tracks in Eastern Ohio next to the Ohio Central main line through Coshocton. The OC owned the old DT&I main, and used it to store cars. There's still cars in storage there today, but you can't tell from Google Earth if the tank train cars are still there, and you can't see them easily from any road. I know they were there in the 2000's.
The Hutch Caboose is part of Proz “End of the Line” restaurant and sports bar in Devils Lake ND and is still going strong. It was beautifully incorporated with an existing building.
Hi. I worked for a short time on the road version of your Schnabel. The company was Abnormal Load Engineering in the UK. what you called the "Lifting Arms" we would call a "Swan Neck" and the load was suspended between them, normally transformers out of the GEC works in Stafford but occasionally Train carriages. Very interesting video, thank you🚂🚃
If you lived along the Milwaukee Road between St. Paul,MN and Milwaukee you saw Sprint trains two or four times a day made up of pure Front Runner cars. It certainly was an interesting look.
Those torpedoes were used in the UK to transport molten iron from the blast furnaces of Teesside to the steel works at Consett whilst the blast furnaces furnaces at Consett were being refurbished. This was during the kate 1960s/early 1970s.
"The Slotcar" Ballast/Tie carrier, the "Hog Heaven" cattle car, SP's articulated Dining car... to name a few more cars. Nice to see the GN NW-5. Thanks for your great videos. John
This video was randomly recommended to me but I am surprised at how much there is to learn about something people like me take for granted. I usually just see a train rolling by and don’t think much of it. Cool video.
I had several of those long eight axle whale-belly cars on my N scale layout back in the 70s. Little did I know about they never entered rail service to make money. But I lived them none the less as they looked neat going through crossovers and tight curves.
I've wanted one of these in O scale (that'd be a sight, huh?), specifically the UTLX 83699. Even started gathering materials to scratchbuild one. I was subsequently stymied by the whalebelly section, specifically how to taper the ends so they smoothly merge into the main body of the tank.
The specialized phosphate gondolas/hoppers where exclusively used by both SCL and CSX in Florida’s Bone Valley who inherited the phosphate hoppers after the SCL-Chessie merger in the 80’s that created CSX.The reason for the use of the phosphate hoppers was to transport phosphate from the phosphate mines in Florida’s Bone Valley to CSX’s Phosphate transloading facility on the shore of Tampa Bay where they were subsequently loaded onto ships. These cars were colored in red for SCL and white on the CSX. The phosphate hoppers’s unique rotary coupler system which enables these phosphate cars to turn on the center axis point of the couplers during a 180 degree turn.
The SanteFe came up with the Tru-Train and built a 1.5-inch scale model of it. It had a locomotive with an engine and generator and controls with 30 sections for loads on a spline that was supported by powered wheel-sets all along the length. It was in TRAINS MAGAZINE. This idea is somewhat similar to a sectioned intermodal car and train. The Georgetown Railroad has a number of slot trains and aggregate/ballast trains they lease.
When I went on a tour of an old Pittsburg blast furnace they had a few torpedo cars. Apparently they were heavy enough to require their own reinforced special bridges and could keep their iron molten for 4-5 days. One time, workers forgot about one of the torpedos and instead of contacting management, they came back with an excavator and buried it. Wasn't discovered until one day it was unearthed while building a parking lot.
I have never heard of anticulated hopper cars. That was my favorite! I would imagine inspecting the shared truck sets would be a pain as inspecting articulated flats is a pain. One unique railcar I really enjoyed working on were the Coors and Tropicana tank cars with the 1/2" thick stainless steel inner tank and the 1/2" thick carbon steel outer tank with 10" of foam insulation in between. The inner tank was polished to a mirror finish. Coors could haul their beer in a near frozen state from Colorado to distribution facilities and only lose a few degrees of liquid temperature. Super cool tanks! Thanks for putting this video together.
amazing Southern plains, i really enjoyed this thanks i wished you could also talk about the SOUthern radio slave unit car I they still have them thanks again 🙂
Another obscure type of steel mill car is the hot ingot car. Designed to carry large steel ingots in temperature controlled environments from one plant to another. Look up LHFX 25000, 25001, 37000
Overland models is what you’re looking for- I have their brass Hutch caboose. For a car that spent its days in branchline service it requires a 22” minimum radius curve in HO. It’s also a heavy sucker.
@Southern_Plains_Railfan K-Line Electric Trains once offered an approximation of this car in O scale, the key word being "approximation". They took their extruded-aluminum-bodied ACF Centerflow hopper and offered two and three-car sets painted up like the Super Hopper. If one bought both sets (I did) you could arrange them in the proper order to create a gleaming stainless-looking "approximation" of this car (although I don't think K-Line used the "Super Hopper" name, they definitely did replicate the interlocking _Santa Fe_ branding and striping spread across the five carbodies)
The white train is an interesting train that the DOD ran in the 60s and 70s, the train ship nukes and other booms from Pantex in the Texas Panhandle, you can see the train at The Amarillo Railroad Museum and go inside the guard coach.
Might want to cover the Minuteman ICBM cars of the late 1950's which are currently at the Feather River RR Museum in Portola CA . They were stored by the USAF at Hill AFB UT for years.
There’s also few more obscure railcars: *Centerflow Conditionaire Covered Hoppers owned by ATSF and BN. *110 Woodchip open hopper *Railwhale oil tankers that were 6-axle and 8-axle ones. *Radioactive waste gondolas that routinely haul contaminated soil from Cold War era nuclear testing sites to a disposal supersite by Clive, Utah
I'm late to the party, but for a British train buff (and former railway worker) this is fascinating viewing. I'd not heard of most of the stock you're describing, and many of them just don't have any counterparts in Britain because our railway practices are so different. Thanks for the video!
My father engineered large transformers for GE back in Pittsfield MA . Was this the first place where Snapli trucks were used. Thank you. Great and interesting information.
In the late 70s, or early 80s, I was at a Norfolk - Southern yard in Gteentree/Carnegie (South of Pittsburgh) and I saw a car that looked like the "shuttle craft" from StarTrek!. I was told it was loaded with electronic equipment, a five man crew ad all the comforts of home. It ran around the country and monitored the tracks for breaks, "soft spots," etc. I've never seen it again since.
ב''ה, track geometry cars (among a few names for this sort of thing) are interesting and there's some railfannage dedicated to them if you go searching.
Great stuff! The 1980s ICBM car, if I remember it right, wasn't the first attempt at missile launching trains. I think there were prototypes at least considered back in the 1960s, even Lionel claimed their missile launcher cars had prototypes, and that was a solid 20 years before the one in the video. Somewhat related, I would love to know more about the Mini-Max railcar. It's an oddball four wheel car, one that Lionel made in the 1970s, and one that I have found one prototype photo of. It looks like a shrunk down Thrall Door car. My understanding is, they were used for short-haul, lightweight freight.
This reminds me that there was an experimental budget refrigerator car that was only about 20’ long, but there was not enough demand to justify building any more.
@@JohnGeorgeBauerBuis Now that sounds interesting. Do you know where I can read up on those? When were they tried? Oddballs like that interest me, and I'm surprised I never heard of this.
I once saw a 2 axle scale test car in around 2012-2014, somewhere in that time frame and I remember (but no pics of either) the big CELX 6 axle tank cars that became extinct around 2018
Absolutely Fascinating. Growing up in the late 70's early 80's at around the age of 10 we had rail roads close to us and I remember seeing a guy leaning out the top window of the caboose with a hunting rifle. We always though he would shoot you if he seen you and we always ran and hid from the trains. Once in a blue moon, I will have a dream trying to run and hide from an on coming train barley moving but I manage to hide just in time. Thanks for sharing.
If you want a truly oversize "caboose" check out the original (non-Amtrak) auto-train #3 (one of 3 built) that Florida Adventures In Railroading recently repatriated to home territory in St Marys, GA from California. Originally an 80' bi-level auto rack built 1959 for CN it and 40 others sold to fledgling auto-train in 1970. They were given high speed express trucks from retired REA express box cars and also D-22 passenger car brake systems. After the 1973 wreck at Hortense, GA #3, and 2 sisters, had the rear third converted to caboose sections for use on the Louisville section where passenger cars on front of consist and auto-racks on rear (this was before FREDs came into use) necessitated a rear end brakeman at end of train. The end result is an 80' combo bilevel auto-rack (good for 6 cars) caboose with passenger train capable trucks and brake system. The auto-train paint scheme will blow you away!!!.
It would be interesting to talk about all the different locations across the country that manufactured rail cars or engines during the 20th century (or earlier).
The Peacekeeper Rail Garrison car is preserved at a railway museum. The Peacekeeper Rail Garrison was made for the cold war. Southern Pacific had a vertipack. The Torpedo Cars are dangerous if not used properly.
Tonight I saw a train go through East Dubuque, Illinois that had a number of large cars that had small square vents on the side. There were three rows of vents. The bottom row of vents and middle row of vents were close together while the top row of vents was near the top of the car. There also was an accordian between every one of these cars on that train. They couldn't have been to haul vehicles but we started thinking live stock. After reading up on these speciality train cars, live stock was out of the question. What were these cars used for and what is the name of these cars?? Never seen them before.
Those mini hoppers reminds me of some well belly container trailers I see. 3 to 4 trailers would share a boggie with larger diameter wheel set between each rail car.
The whale bellies used by Dragon were used to transfer cement from their plant in Thomaston, ME to barges at the port in Rockland,ME. As of a couple years ago they were put out of service and all cement was shipped out by rail in 2 bay hoppers, including a number of pressure differential cars. Dragon has officially announced they’ll be closing their operation in Thomaston by 2025. They started scrapping all of the whale bellies end of 2023, though one is being preserved by the Belfast and Moosehead Lake Railroad.
Let's be here until next Tuesday discussing other obscure rolling stock! This looks like the start of a great series!
lmao IDK if I'll make it a full blown series, but I think a part 2 is due sometime
@@Southern_Plains_Railfan tell u what - better dang do it some??????? And u u know what I mean! Sorry from jersey can’t do a good boomhauer ha!
@@Southern_Plains_Railfan do as many videos as you can I loved the one I saw. Goin to Scranton next week unless the government shuts down then they close to the public
When I started hopping freights in the mid 1970s, you could always find an open box car, car carriers were open air, hopper cars had plenty of hidey-holes, and every train had a caboose. Also, atitudes toward letting a wanderer have a free ride were relaxed. For example, in the fall of 1979 north of Eau Claire, Wisconsin, I was running for a Soo Line and when the engineer saw me, he stopped the train and invited me to ride in the engine cab! Most incredible thing I ever experienced. Well the Soo Line and many others are long gone and little by little, all those things I mentioned above have disappeared, including the lax attitudes. After 9/11, if you even thought about hanging out around a freight yard, you instantly aroused the attention of police. Back in 2011, I was crossing a railroad bridge on foot over the Missouri River and by the time I got to the other side there was a K-9 unit ready to take me in. That's the last time I was even close to the rails, but I certainly enjoyed this video.
I'm from Dayton, Ohio, and recently saw that ICBM boxcar at the Airforce Museum (next to Wright Patt) on a trip I made to visit family. I always thought it was cool, but terrifying at the same time!
Here in Brazil we had a peculiar boxcar, it was a former ALCo FA-1 that got involved in a collision and lost it's nose, so the shops took the wreck shortened the frame cutting the cab and radiator sections and turned it into a engine block mover, they cut a hole in the roof to make loading and unloading easy and kept the iconic FA trucks, and entire ALCo 244 or 251 engine could be carried on the original engine mounting brackets, there were conversion brackets for other engine types too like ALCo 539, GE 7FDL, EMD 567 and 645.
Penn Central did the same thing with an F-7. Its purpose was to transport rebuilt 12-567s from Altoona shops to the DeWitt shops for use in the RS-3m rebuild/repower program
What number was it
I worked for the railroad from 1970 to 90s as an Agent dispatcher
on our road which was a short line of 54 Mi was the scale car because they used to drop one off once a year for certified scales and we had one of the old slidebar scales so anyway I never knew there were so many different unique cars out there and thanks for showing them to us and it's amazing how some of them looked and how they worked so thanks again we appreciate it and me as being an old dog you can show an old dog new tricks.!
That’s really cool! You’re very welcome, I’m glad I could show you something new!
Thanks for explaining the histories of these railcars. I never knew there was video footage of the ICBM car testing.
You're welcome! Glad I could show you something new!
I live close to WPAFB and had no idea it was over there! Where is it on base? Can the public see it?
They ought to put it down at the National Museum of the USAir Force there if that is even possible.
@@markmark1osufan35 It IS at the National Museum of the USAF.
@@karlwithak.
Source, please?
I find it rather strange that nothing can be found on the internet about such a rail car, or any model of 40mm that came in a triple mount. Considering the most commonly used twin mount 40mm with high capacity continuous ammo feed weighs 6 tons (minus ammo) and is so bulky as to be mounted only aboard ships, I find it rather dubious to think 22 mounts would fit on a railcar, not to mention the impossibility of giving any of them more than a few degrees arc of fire. And as a veteran who was involved with antiaircraft systems, I'd like to know how 286 of these could be built without my ever hearing about it. I think perhaps you have been misled by some photoshopped HO gauge toy that someone has claimed to he real.
BTW, the M-579 is an armored recovery vehicle.
@@markmark1osufan35 It's at the far end of the outdoor exhibit runway.
The winglets for the B-1 bomber were shipped in the tallest railcar built at the time. They had a bridge clearance that necessitated a specific route. In aircraft, tolling is usually stored someplace. These cars are probably near Palmdale, ca. Note here that the box was lifted off to load and unload.
Interesting
this was a very nice episode! If you do another one of these, I hope you can include some foreign railcars as well.
Thank you! Maybe. Finding them is going to be the tricky part.
@@Southern_Plains_Railfan I agree with him. I'm under the impression that there are old European cars that have only 4 wheels with no trucks, so I would appreciate learning about those.
There was a six axle stainless steel hopper car called "Stainless Whopper Hopper". According to Wikipedia, it is on display along the Rocky Mount (Amtrak station) and Bus Depot in Rocky Mount in North Carolina.
That’s really cool!
Whopper Hopper is now at NCTM Spencer NC
Very interesting! I’m a total railcar nerd but even I hadn’t heard of some of these.
You could make a whole episode on tank cars alone- specialized cargo calls for specialized cars, of which there are many. Tiny 2300-gallon bromine tanks, 8-axle glycol tanks, the interconnected TankTrain... the possibilities are endless!
Thank you! That's interesting, a bromine tank car sounds terrifying, lol!
I enjoyed the mention of the RailWhales too, though I think calling them failures isn't exactly correct. In a similar style to the Big John hopper, mega-size tankers were on the rise throughout the 60's, and it was actually government regulation that got them yanked off the tracks, mostly to prevent a snowball effect of massive costs to upgrade rails infrastructure to handle them safely. UTLX made a successful 50k gallon tanker much earlier that ran in revenue service for many years, and it even resided in a museum for a time, but sadly Hurricane Ike destroyed it some time ago.
A mile-long string of 40' tankcars just warms my heart, i useta watch 'em go up the Hudson past the Tappan Zee. Sidebay cabooses, crane cars, reefers, all kinds of passenger cars (ages back 2 something Lincoln could have travelled in), different lengths, & FLATCARS: love 'em all.
@@sirmetaladonMore specifically, UTLX 83699 floated off its trucks in the storm surge and was carried onto an adjacent property. Supposedly the museum couldn't afford to hire a contractor to move the car back (or more likely were unable to raise funds in time), and the car had to be scrapped in-place.
To this day I wonder if the museum could have saved the car prior to the storm's arrival by opening the unloading ports and allowing the car to flood from the bottom-up. That might have kept it in-place despite the storm surge.
@@RailRide One can dream. Given a sparse 10 real photos exist of the car online (trust me, I 3d modeled the car; I looked), it would have been nice to take a day trip and see it for myself!
Canadian National also had an articulated hopper type, instead of shortening a hopper it looks like their idea was to split a hopper in half and add a bogie in the middle.
Yes, I came across that while makin this video. Definitely an odd sight.
Thanks for the Very Detailed Video on ten (10) Obscure cars most people have never seen or heard of around the Railroad. 👍🙏
You're welcome!
The military brought one of those Peacekeeper missle cars to Alaska in the late 80s. It was stored at Elmendorf AFB with the idea of converting it to a "mobile" command post. The car was too heavy to ride the rails in Alaska and it was then shipped back to the lower 48 in the early 90s.
The southern autogaurd was a 3 part articulated auto rack car that was use on the southern railroad. It now sits at NCTM on display.
I think there's a second one out there somewhere. Believe someone told me TVRM, but it's been many moons tbh.
That's cool!
Yep!
People are finally noticing your Channel and your Unusual Topics have sparked a Lot of Interest. Keep up the Strong 💪 Efforts. Thanks! 👍🙏
You're welcome, will do!
Your videos never cease to amaze, with your encyclopedic knowledge brought to bear on the subject matter! Think I said so on another of your videos: your channel is my absolute favourite among the many railfan sites I follow. I don’t know how you do so much but your efforts are sincerely appreciated. Keep the episodes coming my friend!!
Thank you so much! Will do!
On those small whale belly cars at 1:40, I wonder if they were used for industries that wanted to load directly into above ground silos. You have a blower that blows air to push material through a line and up to the top of a silo. I worked at a place that received flour from semi trucks that had onboard blowers to go up the lines to the top of the silos. You don't want that dumped out into grates under the hopper, and it's too fine for a grain drill to move it without a mess.
You should explore the BN TroughTrain articulated coal hopper. They were built with 13 units each.
Honorable mention goes to the small "bobber" 4-wheeled cabooses used on the BC hydro railway. They were a small short-line caboose which didn't have sleeping accomodation. The Canadian Pacific used the "shorty" caboose which was employed on the switchbacks around Trail, BC. Using a shorter caboose meant that an extra revenue car could fit on the switchback track.
Forgot the rebuilt boxcars converted into mobile bunkhouse, and the combination boxcar on one end and flatbed on the other. This mod was used for maintenance at remote locations for material storage (covered and uncovered) for track repairs. A nother example was being used for a firefighting pumpcar with a monitor , hose reels, and a manifold for water distribution in forest fire suspension. Normally, we're connected in a combination with surplus tank cars for firefighters' water supply .
I have seen a few of these in person (the scale test cars being the most common). Thanks for letting us know about examples that are still on display - I'm adding them to my travel list
This was VERY interesting, not often one sees something not seen before anymore
Thank you! Glad I could show you something new!
I used to see triple crown trailers all the time at different gm plants in Michigan and surrounding states, looked them over pretty closely. Saw the trains occasionally in Indiana. Pretty strange looking.
I worked in the old GM HQ in Detroit in the early 2000s, and a TrailerTrain passed by every day on the track behind the building
Here's something that I've seen several times viewing at the shared UP - BNSF mainline between Portland Oregon and Seattle. It's not really a rail car but even though there were a lot of them produced, seeing one in service always brought the same question - What kind of a locomotive with no cab is that??? Johnnie that's what they call a Slug!!
I've also personally seen the DOD's white train when it was (I'm guessing here) bringing in the missiles for the submarines at Bangor (near the Navy's base at Bremerton Washington) once construction on the naval sub base was complete. I saw armed guards and some with dogs too. So whatever was on that train was being heavily guarded and protected. So it was no secret what that train was carrying. Anyway you have some very well done and interesting videos here!!! And I hope you keep making them!
I really like the way you gave great details based on your narrative skills about the strange railcars. I just now subscribed your channel. Keep up the great work!👍
Thank you so much, will do!
Good work explaining these wacky train cars. You know your stuff for a railfanner thats only been watching trains for a year.
Thank you!
I would love a sequel of this! The Oklahoma Railway Museum you mentioned also has a unique MKT inspection car made out of a boxcar. That was really neat to see when I went out there.
I love trains and I can tell u certainly do and the way u have explained these different train cars ect is brilliant I can understand everything ur saying this is a gr8 channel and I will be watching and enjoying more videos and learning a lot about this stuff every time I watch them , a massive godbless to you sir, x
Thank you so much! God bless you too!
It is good to hear some history on the peacekeeper rail Garrison. From 1999 to 2003 I did security for the peacekeeper FE Warren.
Absolutely awesome. Best railway channel on YT
Thank you so much!
The BN (and older Pacific Great Eastern) ‘bopper’ cars that were designed to handle both grain and general merchandise service are worth a look. Several BN examples are preserved in Duluth, Minnesota.
There was also a "TankTrain" that had interconnected tank cars so many tank cars could be load or unloaded from one connection. There used to be one set in storage on the old DT&I tracks in Eastern Ohio next to the Ohio Central main line through Coshocton. The OC owned the old DT&I main, and used it to store cars. There's still cars in storage there today, but you can't tell from Google Earth if the tank train cars are still there, and you can't see them easily from any road. I know they were there in the 2000's.
The Hutch Caboose is part of Proz “End of the Line” restaurant and sports bar in Devils Lake ND and is still going strong. It was beautifully incorporated with an existing building.
Hi. I worked for a short time on the road version of your Schnabel. The company was Abnormal Load Engineering in the UK. what you called the "Lifting Arms" we would call a "Swan Neck" and the load was suspended between them, normally transformers out of the GEC works in Stafford but occasionally Train carriages. Very interesting video, thank you🚂🚃
Pretty nice! I didn’t know about some. I’m mostly intrigued by TTX Frontrunners, Having 1 axle on each truck.
Thanks! Glad I could show you somethin new!
If you lived along the Milwaukee Road between St. Paul,MN and Milwaukee you saw Sprint trains two or four times a day made up of pure Front Runner cars. It certainly was an interesting look.
Those torpedoes were used in the UK to transport molten iron from the blast furnaces of Teesside to the steel works at Consett whilst the blast furnaces furnaces at Consett were being refurbished. This was during the kate 1960s/early 1970s.
"The Slotcar" Ballast/Tie carrier, the "Hog Heaven" cattle car, SP's articulated Dining car... to name a few more cars. Nice to see the GN NW-5. Thanks for your great videos. John
This video was randomly recommended to me but I am surprised at how much there is to learn about something people like me take for granted. I usually just see a train rolling by and don’t think much of it. Cool video.
I had several of those long eight axle whale-belly cars on my N scale layout back in the 70s. Little did I know about they never entered rail service to make money. But I lived them none the less as they looked neat going through crossovers and tight curves.
I have one too in N Scale! Love Trains(Real & Model)!
I had one, unfortunately I sold it.
I've wanted one of these in O scale (that'd be a sight, huh?), specifically the UTLX 83699. Even started gathering materials to scratchbuild one. I was subsequently stymied by the whalebelly section, specifically how to taper the ends so they smoothly merge into the main body of the tank.
I really enjoying learning about rail cars from you.
I hope you make more videos talking about real cars.
Thank you! If enough people ask for another video like this, I'll do it.
Ok, you got me with that thumbnail 😂. Very well done video, enjoyed it a lot!
lol Thank you, I'm glad you liked it!
The specialized phosphate gondolas/hoppers where exclusively used by both SCL and CSX in Florida’s Bone Valley who inherited the phosphate hoppers after the SCL-Chessie merger in the 80’s that created CSX.The reason for the use of the phosphate hoppers was to transport phosphate from the phosphate mines in Florida’s Bone Valley to CSX’s Phosphate transloading facility on the shore of Tampa Bay where they were subsequently loaded onto ships. These cars were colored in red for SCL and white on the CSX. The phosphate hoppers’s unique rotary coupler system which enables these phosphate cars to turn on the center axis point of the couplers during a 180 degree turn.
The SanteFe came up with the Tru-Train and built a 1.5-inch scale model of it. It had a locomotive with an engine and generator and controls with 30 sections for loads on a spline that was supported by powered wheel-sets all along the length. It was in TRAINS MAGAZINE. This idea is somewhat similar to a sectioned intermodal car and train.
The Georgetown Railroad has a number of slot trains and aggregate/ballast trains they lease.
The title sounded a bit like click bait so I didn't think I'd stay for long. Wrong! Very interesting and very well done. Thanks.
We learn something new every day . THANK YOU FOR SHARING
You’re welcome!
I once saw a Schnabel car paired up with a shoving platform on the BNSF Staples Subdivision, sure turned my head
Please make more of these about obscure ones! Subscribing in hope for more!
When I went on a tour of an old Pittsburg blast furnace they had a few torpedo cars. Apparently they were heavy enough to require their own reinforced special bridges and could keep their iron molten for 4-5 days. One time, workers forgot about one of the torpedos and instead of contacting management, they came back with an excavator and buried it. Wasn't discovered until one day it was unearthed while building a parking lot.
I have never heard of anticulated hopper cars. That was my favorite! I would imagine inspecting the shared truck sets would be a pain as inspecting articulated flats is a pain. One unique railcar I really enjoyed working on were the Coors and Tropicana tank cars with the 1/2" thick stainless steel inner tank and the 1/2" thick carbon steel outer tank with 10" of foam insulation in between. The inner tank was polished to a mirror finish. Coors could haul their beer in a near frozen state from Colorado to distribution facilities and only lose a few degrees of liquid temperature. Super cool tanks! Thanks for putting this video together.
Thank you. Always something new and weird to discover🙂. Cheers from NZ🇳🇿!
amazing Southern plains, i really enjoyed this thanks i wished you could also talk about the SOUthern radio slave unit car I they still have them thanks again 🙂
Great video! The video production quality is really good!
Thank you very much!
Another obscure type of steel mill car is the hot ingot car. Designed to carry large steel ingots in temperature controlled environments from one plant to another. Look up LHFX 25000, 25001, 37000
Interesting
The Hutch seems like a very interesting caboose, I might pick it up as a model someday
Overland models is what you’re looking for- I have their brass Hutch caboose. For a car that spent its days in branchline service it requires a 22” minimum radius curve in HO. It’s also a heavy sucker.
Unbelievable video Buddy :D
Thanks!
Hey Southern Plains Railfan! I love your content! Keep it up!❤
Thank you, will do!
FEC converted some of their ventilated boxcars into cabooses somewhere in the late 60’s. Now those are interesting
That’s even more exotic than the wooden ‘war-emergency’ cabooses on the Chicago Great Western converted from wood box cars!
Thank you for this and the 2nd video. It's nice to see what market demand is out there for freight.
Great Video! I never knew ATSF had those Articulated Hoppers
Thank you! Glad I could show you something new!
@Southern_Plains_Railfan K-Line Electric Trains once offered an approximation of this car in O scale, the key word being "approximation". They took their extruded-aluminum-bodied ACF Centerflow hopper and offered two and three-car sets painted up like the Super Hopper. If one bought both sets (I did) you could arrange them in the proper order to create a gleaming stainless-looking "approximation" of this car (although I don't think K-Line used the "Super Hopper" name, they definitely did replicate the interlocking _Santa Fe_ branding and striping spread across the five carbodies)
The white train is an interesting train that the DOD ran in the 60s and 70s, the train ship nukes and other booms from Pantex in the Texas Panhandle, you can see the train at The Amarillo Railroad Museum and go inside the guard coach.
Oh yeah, I’ve heard of them. They were pretty controversial from what I understand.
Very informative & fun! Part 2, Please!
I mused to ride the GN huge caboose. It had a small but comfortable passenger accommodation. It was heated, had running water, and a nice restroom.
That's really cool!
0:21 these are some cool train cars I wish I could catch these one day thanks for the history😊
They sure are, you're welcome!
Very interesting, dude! Great informative video. I live right by dragon cement! See these being hauled every week.
Might want to cover the Minuteman ICBM cars of the late 1950's which are currently at the Feather River RR Museum in Portola CA . They were stored by the USAF at Hill AFB UT for years.
There’s also few more obscure railcars:
*Centerflow Conditionaire Covered Hoppers owned by ATSF and BN.
*110 Woodchip open hopper
*Railwhale oil tankers that were 6-axle and 8-axle ones.
*Radioactive waste gondolas that routinely haul contaminated soil from Cold War era nuclear testing sites to a disposal supersite by Clive, Utah
I'm late to the party, but for a British train buff (and former railway worker) this is fascinating viewing.
I'd not heard of most of the stock you're describing, and many of them just don't have any counterparts in Britain because our railway practices are so different. Thanks for the video!
My father engineered large transformers for GE back in Pittsfield MA . Was this the first place where Snapli trucks were used. Thank you. Great and interesting information.
In the late 70s, or early 80s, I was at a Norfolk - Southern yard in Gteentree/Carnegie (South of Pittsburgh) and I saw a car that looked like the "shuttle craft" from StarTrek!. I was told it was loaded with electronic equipment, a five man crew ad all the comforts of home. It ran around the country and monitored the tracks for breaks, "soft spots," etc. I've never seen it again since.
ב''ה, track geometry cars (among a few names for this sort of thing) are interesting and there's some railfannage dedicated to them if you go searching.
Man I consider myself a railfan but I've never EVER heard not even seen these types of railcars in México, thanks for giving us some extra culture
Great stuff! The 1980s ICBM car, if I remember it right, wasn't the first attempt at missile launching trains. I think there were prototypes at least considered back in the 1960s, even Lionel claimed their missile launcher cars had prototypes, and that was a solid 20 years before the one in the video. Somewhat related, I would love to know more about the Mini-Max railcar. It's an oddball four wheel car, one that Lionel made in the 1970s, and one that I have found one prototype photo of. It looks like a shrunk down Thrall Door car. My understanding is, they were used for short-haul, lightweight freight.
This reminds me that there was an experimental budget refrigerator car that was only about 20’ long, but there was not enough demand to justify building any more.
@@JohnGeorgeBauerBuis Now that sounds interesting. Do you know where I can read up on those? When were they tried? Oddballs like that interest me, and I'm surprised I never heard of this.
How about the six axle whopper hopper owned by the SCL! I think it is still in service too
I had no idea about many of these cars - thank you for this video!
The torpedo shipping cars are pretty unusual. Used to haul them all the time.
I work at the ORM, I certainly love those superhoppers, however we may not get to them till after our expansion.
I once saw a 2 axle scale test car in around 2012-2014, somewhere in that time frame and I remember (but no pics of either) the big CELX 6 axle tank cars that became extinct around 2018
Absolutely Fascinating. Growing up in the late 70's early 80's at around the age of 10 we had rail roads close to us and I remember seeing a guy leaning out the top window of the caboose with a hunting rifle. We always though he would shoot you if he seen you and we always ran and hid from the trains. Once in a blue moon, I will have a dream trying to run and hide from an on coming train barley moving but I manage to hide just in time. Thanks for sharing.
Nicely done!
*Nicely done, Kudos!*
Thank you!
This should be a series
Hello! 😃heads up I saw a heritage unit’s report that NS 1071 the New Jersey Central HU is heading your way.
Cool, thank you!
This was pretty dang cool thanks for sharing!
You're welcome, I'm glad you enjoyed!
The B-52 training sim that SAC built to train crews on the B-52 as it came in to the Air Force. It’s currently on display at Fairchild AFB
Great video thanks for showing us the rail cars that never get the light shines on them.
You're very welcome!
If you want a truly oversize "caboose" check out the original (non-Amtrak) auto-train #3 (one of 3 built) that Florida Adventures In Railroading recently repatriated to home territory in St Marys, GA from California.
Originally an 80' bi-level auto rack built 1959 for CN it and 40 others sold to fledgling auto-train in 1970. They were given high speed express trucks from retired REA express box cars and also D-22 passenger car brake systems. After the 1973 wreck at Hortense, GA #3, and 2 sisters, had the rear third converted to caboose sections for use on the Louisville section where passenger cars on front of consist and auto-racks on rear (this was before FREDs came into use) necessitated a rear end brakeman at end of train.
The end result is an 80' combo bilevel auto-rack (good for 6 cars) caboose with passenger train capable trucks and brake system. The auto-train paint scheme will blow you away!!!.
What about the ones that hauled airplanes from Topeka to Seattle?
Wow i founded this video really educational, keep up the awesome work 😊📸💯
Thank you, will do!
@@Southern_Plains_Railfan Your welcome, Happy Railfanning 😊
It would be interesting to talk about all the different locations across the country that manufactured rail cars or engines during the 20th century (or earlier).
8:41 does anyone know what that little thing is on the front locomotive?
I think it’s a camera
The Peacekeeper Rail Garrison car is preserved at a railway museum. The Peacekeeper Rail Garrison was made for the cold war. Southern Pacific had a vertipack. The Torpedo Cars are dangerous if not used properly.
Tonight I saw a train go through East Dubuque, Illinois that had a number of large cars that had small square vents on the side. There were three rows of vents. The bottom row of vents and middle row of vents were close together while the top row of vents was near the top of the car. There also was an accordian between every one of these cars on that train. They couldn't have been to haul vehicles but we started thinking live stock. After reading up on these speciality train cars, live stock was out of the question. What were these cars used for and what is the name of these cars?? Never seen them before.
The unusual always floats my boat. A great video, thanks. 😎😊👌👍!
Those mini hoppers reminds me of some well belly container trailers I see. 3 to 4 trailers would share a boggie with larger diameter wheel set between each rail car.
You might consider a special on Stock (cattle) cars - there’s interesting history out there.
Let's not forget the other steel mill cars; slag ladles and ingot buggies.
ICU primarily stick with standard gauge rolling stock. Have you ever looked into narrow gauge rolling stock.
It's a caboose with a big caboose!
lol
There once was a road van that was turned into a locomotive on a narrow gauge railroad in iowa
That's cool!
Yea it was used to collect milk from the farms on the line
They called it the canary because it was painted canary yellow
The whale bellies used by Dragon were used to transfer cement from their plant in Thomaston, ME to barges at the port in Rockland,ME. As of a couple years ago they were put out of service and all cement was shipped out by rail in 2 bay hoppers, including a number of pressure differential cars. Dragon has officially announced they’ll be closing their operation in Thomaston by 2025. They started scrapping all of the whale bellies end of 2023, though one is being preserved by the Belfast and Moosehead Lake Railroad.
8:32 nice to see my town’s shop get a little feature.