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BigBadMatt — NYC
Published: 2012-07-02 05:15:19 +0000 UTC; Views: 507; Favourites: 20; Downloads: 6
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Anybody remember the unusual old blue/green boxcar partially hidden in the Elk Grove industrial park that i submitted a while ago? Turns out it's an oooolllldddddd New York Central 50 or 60 foot boxcar. The reporting marks are all missing somehow (i tried to see them by moving the sharp branches out of the way, but they seem to have been purposefully erased or painted over). Maybe another weekend i'll be able to sneak in a little closer and see if i can get any reporting marks or a car number off it. Elk Grove Village 7-1-12Related content
Comments: 10
Did you try to get a look at the frame underneath? I found some ex-NYC and ex-PRR boxcars in Ohio that had nothing on the side, but I was able to find the serial numbers and reporting marks on the frame underneath the car.
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No, i was technically trespassing just taking this photo!
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Ah. Well... I wouldn't know anything about doing THAT sort of thing.
But probably best you didn't push it. I've had some close calls doing such things...
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Sweet shot, Matt! I'm surprised that old relics like this are still "in the wild" so to speak. With the huge push for modernization and recycling across the country over the last 20 years or so, most pieces like this are long gone.
If some entity wants to keep this out of the hands of scrappers, why not purchase it from its owners?
Or am I missing something?
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I have a feeling the local switch crew "lost" it as an empty and parks it on different, unused tracks so the owners or insurance company or whatever doesn't find it and scrap it. Or it could have been a relic, purchased by a local industry that bought it cheap and used it as storage. I've seen that a lot, from a pair of C&NW 40' boxcars [link] (only one was left, google satellite showed two parked on the siding), as well as a pair of i think conrail or NYC 50' boxcars parked under the L tracks in global 1, around 15th & Ashland that were destroyed in a mysterious fire (wish i'd taken photos of them, before and after. Those cars were warped and twisted!). I even remember a 40 or 50' car still equipped with roofwalks when i started with the railroad that floated around Proviso, which also has some old "fallen flag" antique box cars used as bumper cars at the end of the hump track bowl to keep cars from rolling out. They are out there, and more common than you might think. Still, pretty amazing to see this one survive so long, it's got to be the oldest non-painted or patched livery i've seen!
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I was shocked! I have a funny feeling that, like the CNW waycars, the local crew or the terminal RR is hiding these things from the scrappers. Hence the missing reporting marks. I actually feel a little worried posting these things if that's true!
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They'll catch it anyway if it means a couple dollars!
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