A long time ago (20 years) in a galaxy far far away I took this shot of a very large SP Boxcar. Were these cars built huge to carry a specific commodity?
Thank you.
Paul
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86’ auto parts boxcar.
Usually frames. At least that was what was in the ones (not SP) heading to the Wilmington, DE Chrysler(?) plant. Now flattened, btw. They came south on the Port Road ant turned north on the corridor to Wilmington. Interesting to watch at Perryville.
Saw an early, four-door version of the Southern Pacific one last night in 1967's "In the Heat of the Night." Here's a YouTube video with trains from the movie - the SP box car is at about 1:05.
That ias a great movie.
Sheet metal car part for Chevys. These were mostly pool cars. Pools could be set up by the line that a plant was on if specialized equipment was required. Let’s say in this case 20% of the traffic was going to go over the SP. SP could be ask to supply 20% of the cars. The railroad that the industrial was on would manage all the cars in the pool. It is possible that the SP cars would rarely or never get back to SP track. The pool operator would manage maintenance and maintenance costs would be allocated also based on either actual or allocated revenue. With fewer and longer railroads today, there may not be many pools anymore.
