....sitting on one of the north leads right now, back home! Looks like a standard flatcar, but right in the center, they have welded a huge, square, metal box! Whats this for?
Nah, I was chasin' a SB general merchandiser at about 8 PM last night, pretty dark by then. I'd go down there today, but it's my day off-"honeydo list" and all! She was really clean with a kinda' medium green color, but not BN green. The "box" in the middle was dark primer, probably 10' long, 3' feet high, centered in the car. Two other flats with her, both BN treatment.
I have never seen photos of the green flats, only black ones, so that would be a real prize to get a photo of. I can't find that car number listed so it's hard to say what it was intended for.
Except for the box, she's all original, with "Northern Pacific" spelled out in the center, and the same with NP 66225 towards the left side.
I think it is an idler car and the box is to give it some weight. Here is a picture of NP66199 from RR Pictures archive by Douglas Hildebrandt. I'm assuming the one you've seen is similar I guess it is from the same series. I also assume it has been renumbered as I checked in the Northern Pacific Railway Historical Association's website and can't find this series. I recon it must be gettig mighty close to fifty by now. Correct me if I'm wrong but 50yo cars are banned from interchange service. Athough now with the mergers a car could go nearly anywhere and not be interchanged. Cheers, Alan.
This car is from NP FM series 66100-66244. Built in late 1969, delivered in BN green, anticipating the merger. It is still less than 40 years old, so should be good for interchange. Boxcab E50
Yep, that's the one! Thanks for the pic, Alan. Same color and all. I can see the ballast in the box now, I couldn't see that from the street.
There are several of these around, along with rail panal cars still in full NP get up, Spokane has several sitting in the yard. Kevin
So they are assigned strictly to m-o-w? That might explain why nobody can track them down... Boxcab E50
I do not think all of them are MOW, case in point the idler cars but I have never seen one personaly that was not in MOW track panal service. One of these days i will figure out how to track cars in the BNSF system and figure this out. Kevin
I'm working on a Z Scale model of that car. I really like it, want to use 3 like it on a log train, with 65' drop end gons full of long poles.
When I made my last post, even though 66225 was visually verified as still sitting there, it was showing as "not on the system." Boxcab E50
