Other than when they take a can of spray paint, and put a line through the reporting numbers, not really. Sometimes there's a placard on the tack board stating it's routing. Which can indicate the fate. Cars can look pretty rough, and still be in use. They may not take it out of service, until it arrives at a RR owned facility. And we'd not know that was going to happen. Boxcab E50
Central NM, a bit off the beaten path. It's stenciled MW, I hope it stays safe. A few more are here in my latest blog entry. .
i posted this picture over in the NS forum, but then I stumbled upon this topic all about boxcars, so I felt compelled to repost the picture here, this is a Norfolk Southern Boxcar inside the rail dock of an auto parts manufacturer ready to be loaded. funny story, occasionally we have to write welding permits for the welders to work on these cars, usually they just have to cut something off of the floor or something like that, one time the i inspected the car to make sure it was safe to weld ie no flammable material, and there was a bunch of hay on the floor of the boxcar, apparently the boxcar had served for a hobo's bed for a while.
Interesting picture inside the facility. Rare to see something like that from a rail fan who is outside, of course.
You don't get to see too many of these around these parts, but it does remind me of home. A NS boxcar sitting in the CN west yard waiting on its next assignment.
well call me the inside guy, hehehe, I could try to get a few more pics of these boxcars, they are mostly NS with a few conrail and CN thrown in occasionally, I know it might be of interest to some to see pics of these being loaded, but that would get me in trouble :tb-biggrin:
