Help: unknown US freight car

[Pendolino]

Can someone help me identifying this type of car, and tell me if it has ever been made for Trainz?

I found this picture on Flickr this morning, and I saw five of them in a Youtube video some days ago. In the video, these cars were at the head end of a Union Pacific autorack/TOFC train, so I believe they are used for some priority freight. I initially thought they were BN boxcars, but there is no BN logo and the sides look like those of a stock car.
Unfortunately, I've been unable to read the reporting mark on the side: the last letter looks like a "X", so they should be privately-owned cars. The car number has 2 digits only, so I presume that only a small number of these car exists.

Thanks in advance.

 

[wilh]

That car is one of a series of modern stock cars owned by HOGX (of which I can not remember what it stands for) and I do not believe that it has been made for Trainz.

 

[Pendolino]

Thanks for the quick reply, I'll make a search on Google for "HOGX"!

I was puzzled as the video I saw was taken in 1993, and I believed that stock cars were phased out of service in the late '70s / early '80s.

 

[cascaderailroad]

YUM ... Pork, Chicken, Turkey, and Lunchmeat Ends ... the staple of all mankind !

 

[pdkoester]

That car is one of a series of modern stock cars owned by HOGX (of which I can not remember what it stands for) and I do not believe that it has been made for Trainz.

do they transport hogs / swine / piggies??

 

[mikeaust]

They look like triple deckers, designed for sheep and pigs,
cheers,
Mike

 

[wilh]

do they transport hogs / swine / piggies??

What I meant by that was the owner of the cars, not what they carried (as that is a little obvious).

 

[Pendolino]

Thank you all for your replies!

I found some information about these cars: they were used to carry hogs from Nebraska to California. The various sources I found, however, do not agree about their size (50', 54' or 60') and origin (some state they were built in the late '80s, others that they were rebuilt from MP 50' auto boxcars...).

 

[rgcx]

They were **60 footers with 3 levels for loading hogs. Feeding, watering and resting was engineered so that the hogs did not have to leave the cars while en-route to their destination of East Los Angeles. This was a Farmer John (Clougherty) operation. They were hosed down (hog drenching) at Dry Lake, NV by an automatic car sprayer. Loads were gathered at South Omaha and Sioux City via BN to Fremont. The last of the hog trains occurred in 1993. Regular livestock loadings wound down by 1980. It was a mutual feeling between railroads and livestock shippers to eliminate stock cars. There were numerous rules (feeding, resting and watering) that had to be followed and trucks could move them faster without having to stop to comply with such rules.

**Corrected interior length of car

 

[JohnnyC1]

I believe "HOGX" meant hog express. UP used them to transport pigs to the Farmer John plant in Vernon Ca. not to far from downtown LA and on the UP San Pedro sub/branch. You would not believe the stench!

John

 

[cascaderailroad]

Actually the "X" is just a last letter that is added onto car markings (GATX, UTLX, CELX ... etc ...)

As with CSX, the "X" defines "other than a railroad" (as CSX is not a railroad, but is classified as a transportation system, and probably gets huge tax breaks because of its name on the Stock Market).

Alot of people say my Scrapple stinks ... How many little Spam" animules' can they fit into a stock car ? Probably a million ... as Spam's are very, very small, cute little animules' !

Some paranoid people would interject that they would be used by FEMA, for herding up people under Agenda 21

 

[opus722]

The "X" means it is not a common carrier -an organization that carries the goods and is responsible for any losses or damages during transit. If you are interested "U" is for containers and "Z" is for trailers. CSX is a railroad, and a common carrier, necessitating the reporting mark CSXT. The C is for Chessie System, the S is for Seaboard System, and the X is a cross representing the merger of the two.