A new home for old boxcars

JCitron

Trainzing since 12-2003
A new home for old boxcars and covered hoppers

https://goo.gl/maps/GNkcTfEJDau

I came across a lot of these while traveling across the Midwest in Kansas and elsewhere. This one is located in Colorado near Trinidad. It's great seeing the old road names on them and slogans from the past.There are also some nice wooden ones out there including old work cars, still with couplers attached, and roof racks. I remember seeing some that still had the old brake wheels attached. On some you could see where doors were cut into the sides and steps were added, while others use the existing doors with a ramp or two.

Now this gives me an idea... Take some of the older model boxcars that no longer look good for running, but are quite suitable scenery use like this. If I do this, I will modify the assets into scenery items and then use blocks under the wheel bolsters to support the old boxcars. I've seen those installed and on the DLS and I think our dearly departed friend Ben Dorsey made some of those.

The local communities did the same with small covered hoppers:

https://goo.gl/maps/CKLuqdi8Wpu

https://goo.gl/maps/NyDAdVdJiAJ2 --- a better view. Note the coupler pockets and the old brake wheels.

This one is in Boone CO.

The old station, by the way, behind the camera is now the town hall. Another idea...
 
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I use whitepass' 'boxcar', <kuid2:58422:24001:1> to represent such cars, as they're trackside objects. I place them on a piece of invisible track and lower the track to below ground just enough for the trucks to disappear. This'll look like what you're suggesting. You could also use normal boxcars instead to represent the numerous railroads found in the pictures. If I want to represent a passenger car sitting outside a restoration shop that has had its trucks removed I use frogpipe's 'Static P70', <kuid:204652:100410>, and repeat the above process.
 
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Those work very well, but the selection is limited. With so many older boxcars that don't quite fit in today's operations, I think converting the older ones to sheds and out buildings for farms and other commercial or residential storage use is a good idea. As I said I so so many of these while on the road. Some were quite nicely maintained while others were unfortuantely rotting away. It was great seeing the road names, slogans, and logos from the 1940s still on the sides of these old boxcars.
 
Some people live in such cars now... I travel a lot, and when I walk along local roads and streets, I often see such old covered wagons, near which little kids run around. As I understand it, their parents cannot afford to build a typical house and live in wagons. Although some people who have large plots of land especially purchase covered wagons to store in them some tools and things that will be useful to them when working in the garden. But still, I would not purchase such a pasture on my site. It would be much more expedient to look at some project at home boutiquehomeplans.com and build a typical house instead of these wagons. What do you think, agree with me?
 
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Here in the UK we have been doing this since Victorian times with old railway stock with carriages and wagons and vans with them being sold to farmers and landowners as buildings. There are even specific Facebook groups that go around finding them and the history of each one. Soem being so old are then bought by preservation trusts and restored to operate on preserved railways. The same happens with old tramcars as well.
 
It's nice to know that some railroad exec had the energy to find a way to sell off some junked cars instead of just signing a paper and letting them go to junk.
 
Here is an example of an old boxcar that was kept by the railway: Great Northern 319449 near Sandpoint Idaho.
Through at least 2017, it sat on a BNSF (former GN) siding, mostly neglected, fading, and alone. But sometimes it would move a small distance away but never far. I believe BNSF was using it for storage.

Earlier today I could not find it on Google Maps Street View, so I believe it has been scrapped.

RailPictures.Net Photo: GN 319499 Great Northern 50-foot boxcar at Sandpoint, Idaho by Mike Danneman
 
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Here is an example of an old boxcar that was kept by the railway: Great Northern 319449 near Sandpoint Idaho.
Through at least 2017, it sat on a BNSF (former GN) siding, mostly neglected, fading, and alone. But sometimes it would move a small distance away but never far. I believe BNSF was using it for storage.

Earlier today I could not find it on Google Maps Street View, so I believe it has been scrapped.

RailPictures.Net Photo: GN 319499 Great Northern 50-foot boxcar at Sandpoint, Idaho by Mike Danneman

The same happened not long ago with some old milk cars that were parked along Bridge Street in Peabody, MA. They were there for years and years but in the past 25 years, they disappeared. When I was a kid, I saw B&M trucks parked near them and I assumed they were used for storage. Today, the siding that they sat on is now a parking-spaces, and the small yard that was there has been reduced to a small runaround track for the local that serves Grace Chemical located down the branch.

These too would make a nice addition to the old wagons for storage.
 
Here in the UK we have been doing this since Victorian times with old railway stock with carriages and wagons and vans with them being sold to farmers and landowners as buildings. There are even specific Facebook groups that go around finding them and the history of each one. Soem being so old are then bought by preservation trusts and restored to operate on preserved railways. The same happens with old tramcars as well.

That's great to hear that the old wagons and passenger cars are being preserved. We've been lucky here and rescued a number of them as well and some are running again in charter service. In some locations old trolley cars became small houses, shed, and even restaurants but once found they were purchased and moved to a local transit museum.
 
Isn't this the origin of the classic East Coast Diner? Get an old railroad diner car and have it towed to a location where it is modified to be a restaurant.
 
That's happening in several places around the country. Here is BNSF outside of Gillette, Wyoming. Go ahead and click down the road, you will be clicking for a long time, and it is on multiple tracks. A regular Loco warehouse there. https://www.google.com/maps/@44.283...Icq3-QssHyGNhoojpLww!2e0!7i16384!8i8192?hl=en

https://www.google.com/maps/@44.284...tbSafONDdTI-TXx6nvWQ!2e0!7i16384!8i8192?hl=en

https://www.google.com/maps/@44.285...498&pitch=0&thumbfov=100!7i16384!8i8192?hl=en

https://www.google.com/maps/@44.287...VKBPg8_iCcnVHUXIqkeg!2e0!7i16384!8i8192?hl=en

Here's a partial view from Interstate 90:
https://www.google.com/maps/@44.296...GtMTPC9PsI5lMSsa5Y1Q!2e0!7i16384!8i8192?hl=en

And I recall someone posting shots of a yard full of BNSF in the port of Houston awhile back.

I am thinking this thread should be down under prototype talk though, as it does not deal with Trainz.
 
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Here in the UK ....... Some being so old are then bought by preservation trusts and restored to operate on preserved railways. The same happens with old tramcars as well.

Isn't that what happened to the railcars used in Downton Abbey? I was really ticked off when they were trashed, although I hear they are being rebuilt once more.

Bill
 
My uncle up in Minnesota had several boxcars on his farm he used for grain storage a couple for work sheds...
 
That's happening in several places around the country. Here is BNSF outside of Gillette, Wyoming. Go ahead and click down the road, you will be clicking for a long time, and it is on multiple tracks. A regular Loco warehouse there. https://www.google.com/maps/@44.283...Icq3-QssHyGNhoojpLww!2e0!7i16384!8i8192?hl=en

https://www.google.com/maps/@44.284...tbSafONDdTI-TXx6nvWQ!2e0!7i16384!8i8192?hl=en

https://www.google.com/maps/@44.285...498&pitch=0&thumbfov=100!7i16384!8i8192?hl=en

https://www.google.com/maps/@44.287...VKBPg8_iCcnVHUXIqkeg!2e0!7i16384!8i8192?hl=en

Here's a partial view from Interstate 90:
https://www.google.com/maps/@44.296...GtMTPC9PsI5lMSsa5Y1Q!2e0!7i16384!8i8192?hl=en

And I recall someone posting shots of a yard full of BNSF in the port of Houston awhile back.

I am thinking this thread should be down under prototype talk though, as it does not deal with Trainz.

That's right at the north end of BNSF's Orin Sub, which goes straight thru the heart of the Powder River Basin, where most of the coal that coal-fired power plants in the US get their fuel from. I suspect that the stored diesels are made up of SD70MAC's and other AC traction locomotives put out of work by the decrease demand in coal. They're waiting for an increase in the demand for coal, then they'll be back to hauling coal trains.
 
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