ETD on a Virginian 100 ton coal hopper- Curious, could that have happened?

It's possible although unlikely. Some Virginian hoppers in original paint hung around for a very long time after the merger. However, I don't think the Virginian ever had a hopper car with yellow lettering. Looks like a fantasy scheme to me.

Ken

The LOTS car is a fantasy paint job.  VGN's hoppers were all black with white lettering.

I never saw an EDT on the Burlington or the IC (my local roads) in 1969.  It was the Florida East Coast that first adopted them in 1969 to cut labor costs during a long strike.

EDT's didn't really become common among other railroads until the early 80's and it didn't happen overnight.

Rusty

Ken and rusty,

Thanks for the insights, I had wondered about this since I bought these (I also have the non ETD one of the pair) at York a few years ago.   

I also have this one in yellow  paint and it must be fantasy too from Lionel's imagination -Note the NS heritage description on the box

It was hard to imagine any railroad spent money on heritage paint for rolling stock..... 

hokie71 posted:

It was hard to imagine any railroad spent money on heritage paint for rolling stock..... 

 

 

Especially a coal hopper which would get the snot beaten out of it.

BNSF did "heritage" covered hoppers, all were painted gray, had BNSF reporting marks and simply had a predecessor road herald on the side.

Rusty

ETD's were not used until cabooses were eliminated from freight trains in the early - mid 1980's....not sure if wikipedia is correct on that 1969 date.. my thoughts, no ETD on a virginian  car and definitely no car was ever painted yellow.

Jim Berger posted:

ETD's were not used until cabooses were eliminated from freight trains in the early - mid 1980's....not sure if wikipedia is correct on that 1969 date..

That date might be related to the Florida East Coast RR, which actually "invented" the ETD, or "FRED" as we know it today. When I was promoted to EMD District Engineer in the fall of 1967, FEC was one of my customers, and they were no longer using cabooses on their main line trains. Each lead locomotive had the "Mary" device, and the rearend carried "FRED".

my thoughts, no ETD on a virginian  car and definitely no car was ever painted yellow.

Correct, and correct!

I found the first ETD I ever saw... this century. I live maybe 100yards from an old GT line (still active).  I hadn't seen many without a caboose before that time either.

  After a few minutes a hi-rail pulled up nearby and the guy was looking for "something".. I whistled and pointed, he waved.   I figured it was a tester of some kind, with a transmitter.   It looked like big yellow walkie-talkie without speaker/mic holes to me back then. Heavier than it looked too.