I'm looking for any history on Minnesota, Dakota & Western (MDW) 50' FMC boxcars in the 71xx series. Any help would be greatly appreciated.
I have been struggling to find info on MD&W cars for a long time, but have yet to find any real info. Why am I interested? In the late 80's I lived in Boise, and used to spend spring and summer weekends camping up and around Cascade Idaho. On my trips up, I passed a small mill in Horseshoe Bend, and a larger mill in Cascade. At the Horseshoe Bend mill they had a woodchip loader track, and there were Chip gons loading there. Often NP, GN, BN, UP, and GWS markings were commonly represented. I could have sworn I seen white Chip cars with the green Boise Cascade tree logo on them there. Nobody could ever confirm such cars. They said MD&W for reporting marks. I have never been able to track down a photo of an MD&W chip gon, however I did take many photo's of the cars seen there in the late 80's. (now held hostage by my ex in Payette ID) I also had a collection of photos of other MD&W cars. Dark green Boise Cascade Thrall-Door cars, White Thrall-Door cars, taken around Emmit. I had photos of half size plug full size sliding door cars in both white with green door, green with white door, and all green, most sporting a large Boise Cascade circle tree logo. UP GP9's and GP38-2's pulling the trains up around there. Now I want to have all those cars in my collection, and wish I could find more info. Oh, to answer your question on the combo plug door cars, I have seen photos of them pulled behind NP GP9's, placing them in the 70's, through my own sighting's through the mid 90's when I moved away.
Man, talk about reviving an old thread! At the time I posted this question, I was thinking these 71xx series such as the one above might be ex CPLT. I don't think so but still...maybe?
Reviving old threads is something I like to do on a forum. I rather dislike seeing a dozen different threads, all with one or two posts, and all on the same subject. Just seems like poor housekeeping to me. (And no, I'm not a moderator.)
