Are Boxcars still being used?

On the trains I see here in the upper Midwest, it's all tankers (for ethanol or soybean oil) and covered hoppers ( for fertilizer & grain).   Been a long time since I saw a boxcar in a consist.

Yes, I live between Baltimore and Washington DC near the  CSX mainline ( former B&O Washington Branch ) and I see boxcars in consists frequently.  There is a CSX yard near me as well which primarily serves an automobile distribution center.  Obviously the yard handles auto racks primarily, however, I do see some boxcars in the yard from time to time.  

We live in eastern Baltimore County, Maryland about 1 mile from the CSX main line north. We see box cars regularly on passing trains.

I look at the Elkhart, Indiana Virtual Rail Fan site quite often and a good percentage of the trains have box cars, anywhere from 40' to 86' long in them.

Yes.

Boxcars are used for what they have been used for since they were built...bringing items to the customer who have a dock or ramp to unload them

Whenever I see a manifest freight in a yard or at a grade crossing, I normally see at least a handful of boxcars.

They are still in use by the tens of thousands!

Any customer who is directly served by the railroad  will want their freight delivered in a box car. They will not want to incur the additional cost a truck delivering a container to their truck dock.

Remember...it's a business, folks.

I see them all the time on the UP line to Phoenix.

Here in the Southeast, there are lots of boxcars in manifest trains. NS 373 normally makes a pick up in Rome, GA on its way between Atlanta and Chattanooga. That pickup frequently includes anywhere from 15-40 boxcars out of the IP mill in Rome.

NS is also experimenting with LCL on a limited basis by including a TBOX of LCL business on the headend of intermodal trains 215 and 216 between Atlanta and Chicago.

Curt

Boxcars are much in evidence in this recent photo of a beer wholesaler's warehouse in the Silicon Valley. I understand this is popular way to transport beer from Mexico, leading the UP to reactivate many long stored boxcars.

Razor wire and graffiti tell you it's not the fifties anymore.

The CSX tracks leading to the Morgantown Generating Station in southern Maryland carry long trains of hoppers with coal for the plant.  Sometimes at the end are a mix of cars for other industries along the line, and there is usually one if not more boxcars.  A mixed freight with boxcars does used the line to service the industries, but I rarely see it since it works at night.

Just visited Engine House Hobbies in Gaithersburg, Md. today.  The CSX line ( former Metropolitan Branch of the B&O ) from DC area to the west ... Pittsburg, Chicago etc. run right by the store.  While I was there 3 trains passed by, auto rack train, garbage train, and a mixed freight with plenty of boxcars.

Rolls of paper are still delivered by boxcar.  They could be packed into containers and for short hauls directly into semis, but most paper mills have trackage that runs right into the warehouse and the clamp trucks (modified forklifts) can be driven right into the cars.  Larger web printing plants will also have docks for rail car delivery.

@CAPPilot posted:

The CSX tracks leading to the Morgantown Generating Station in southern Maryland carry long trains of hoppers with coal for the plant.  Sometimes at the end are a mix of cars for other industries along the line, and there is usually one if not more boxcars.  A mixed freight with boxcars does used the line to service the industries, but I rarely see it since it works at night.

I enjoy that route on business trips to DC, you can get some good scenic glances from both bridge and at plant. Both are impressive. Passed by one day and coal train had left interesting coal hoppers, they were shorter and blockier than what you usually see. Was first hint it was coal burning power facility.....

Catlettsburg refinery in KY another interesting rail related one I stumbled on.

I live about 20 minutes from the Norfolk Southern Conway Yard and I can assure you that there are all kinds of box cars still in service today.

In Austin I regularly see entire trains of 50' boxcars coming up from Mexico. There are several auto part plants down there plus bottling companies moving beer, topo chico, and sodas.

“Graffiti” The railroad artist sure like railroad boxcars. Shot this last week at the CN Yard, Pontiac Michigan.

Gary

Personally I look at a BC and think it is packed from top to bottom.  Stuffed full of product.  Is that a fair assumption or are they just one layer of pallets that the forklift can load easily?  I would think the load is even height or packed tight on the pallet so nothing shifts?  I would like to see how they are loaded and what is in them.

@CAPPilot posted:

The CSX tracks leading to the Morgantown Generating Station in southern Maryland carry long trains of hoppers with coal for the plant.  Sometimes at the end are a mix of cars for other industries along the line, and there is usually one if not more boxcars.  A mixed freight with boxcars does used the line to service the industries, but I rarely see it since it works at night.

Boxcars full of lumber used to get spotted at Chopp Lumber in Waldorf, along with some centerbeam flats. There was also 84 Lumber down there that started getting cars around 2014 but I only ever put centerbeam cars in there. Chopp would get DWC and TBOX 60' cars, but also standard 50' non-equipped boxcars and even combo-door ABOX cars. When I worked out of the yard that handled these trains from 2008-2016, there were many jobs out of the terminal. It wasn't uncommon to perform the industry work during daylight. It was simply a matter of decided which job would take the coal, to which plant, and which industries needed a switch, how long the cars had been accruing dwell in Benning yard, etc.

Many times, B809 would perform the misc. work if B803 and B804 handled the coal. It had an on duty time of 0400, so by the time we got going and over Amtrak, we'd be on the Creek by 9 or so in the morning. Working the industries by 10 or 11. In order to avoid a round trip, many times the cars that were pulled from those industries were forward to Morgantown, and when the afternoon job would pull the coal mtys, the first move would be to grab the empty lumber pulls and stick those on the head end. At Benning, they'd be set off some place where D782 out of Brunswick would grab all of their misc. cars and take them back to Brunswick for further classifying. Now there' only one regular job at Benning, everything down the Creek is called extra and does not have a call time.

@BigOrangeCatHead posted:

I enjoy that route on business trips to DC, you can get some good scenic glances from both bridge and at plant. Both are impressive. Passed by one day and coal train had left interesting coal hoppers, they were shorter and blockier than what you usually see. Was first hint it was coal burning power facility.....

Catlettsburg refinery in KY another interesting rail related one I stumbled on.

Those would have been limestone hoppers, not coal cars. In 2009 or so, they installed limestone scrubbers at the two plants, Chalk Point and Morgantown to help abate emissions. They also started burning urea in the process that came in TILX tank cars. Usually once a week, a job would deliver the limestone cars to each plant. If one of the jobs tasked with pulling coal mtys did not have many to pull and the limestone cars were mty, they sometimes were tasked with grabbing both the limestone and coal mtys.

@Jeffrey Sessa posted:

Those would have been limestone hoppers, not coal cars. In 2009 or so, they installed limestone scrubbers at the two plants, Chalk Point and Morgantown to help abate emissions. They also started burning urea in the process that came in TILX tank cars. Usually once a week, a job would deliver the limestone cars to each plant. If one of the jobs tasked with pulling coal mtys did not have many to pull and the limestone cars were mty, they sometimes were tasked with grabbing both the limestone and coal mtys.

Great answer..thanks for taking time to comment, I really was curious about this since I saw them. I've seen a lot of coal trains in my life and those were weird. There were about ten of them, empty I think. Maybe waiting for pickup?

No boxcars though. lol

Boxcars? Yes. My hometown has BNSF, CN, and UP. Although we have a lot of grain, ethanol trains, drilling sand, we still get a lot of box cars through Sioux City. I wonder if the question should have been related to privately owned boxcars, eg, Railbox, etc.

Dick

Greenbrier rail car builder just announced orders totalling over 5500 rail cars for the quarter.  Many of the orders are for boxcars. Also all other types of rolling stock.  So boxcars will not be going away.  Lots of what's out there is approaching their 50 year limit but they will be replaced.

@superwarp1 posted:

Greenbrier rail car builder just announced orders totalling over 5500 rail cars for the quarter.  Many of the orders are for boxcars. Also all other types of rolling stock.  So boxcars will not be going away.  Lots of what's out there is approaching their 50 year limit but they will be replaced.

The 50’ plate c cars are what’s coming up to the 50 year limit soon... some places cannot accept a plate f car. Will be interesting to see what is built.

@superwarp1 posted:

Greenbrier rail car builder just announced orders totalling over 5500 rail cars for the quarter.  Many of the orders are for boxcars. Also all other types of rolling stock.  So boxcars will not be going away.  Lots of what's out there is approaching their 50 year limit but they will be replaced.

Fifty years ago, the PRR, NYC and many eastern roads were deferring maintenance on rolling stock.  With bankrupcies and mergers, maintenance suffered creating a huge shortage of boxcars.  Many consortiums were formed and purchased boxcars, small railroads bought new cars and some assigned cars were pulled off their routes and placed in the pool of free runners.  RAILBOX was formed and those cars disregarded the routing and return empty rules. This created a noticible hump in the production cycle and as Gary said, that hump was fifty years ago and those cars are approaching the end of their revenue service life.  John