You bring up a great point John. Every day another vestige of CB&Q disappears
(dismantling of the famous Burlington bridge) so the lesson learned is to take
those pics as you never know 'when' it will be your last opportunity.
How did this inception of 'unit trains' rate in timeliness with other RR's
John? Another great example of CB&Q innovation during the Murphy years!
Tks for sharing all the details!
PS - speaking of that Hanover Trust plate, I have several Q Trust Plates
(mostly Northern Trust of Chicago). Annual Reports list the outstanding
"equipment trusts" each issue but do not indicate which equipment was the
subject of same. (ie. was trust #3 from Continental Bank for 100 Box cars
numbered from 14000-14099?) Anybody have a list? The ones I have seen were
nearly always Chicago banks as of course Chicago is a banking center and CB&Q
was headquartered there.
For those who are curious, "Equipment Trusts" were/are a long time favorite of
railroads (& airlines) to acquire the capital needed to buy new locomotives,
freight cars, etc when there was not enough internal cash to finance same.
Banks liked them as the "trust" was the equipment itself leased to the railroad
with payback coming from the daily car rentals. When the lease was paid
(typically 10 yrs or longer), the equipment became the RR's. Rarely did any
railroad default (the only one up at least thru the 60's was a Florida East
Coast default on locomotives). The "security" of an equipment trust was that
revenue earned by the freight car was used to pay back the trust. An
interesting sidelight was when a freight car, still within its trust period was
destroyed in a derailment. Sometimes the destroyed car would sit for months
until the bank could verify it was destroyed.
A group member who is banker may want to further explain "equipment trusts".
They are very collectable as sometimes were removed when the car was retired &
came into the rail fan market. (railroads did not remove them when the trust
period ended as was too much of a hassle as usually welded to sideframe or
bolted*) They are cast iron or steel in latter years approx. 15" x 6" (varies)
with RR's name, bank name and date of trust (ie. Chicago, Burlington & Quincy -
Northern Trust - Equipment Trust #6 of 1963)
* some you see @ RR shows or in someone's train room are missing part of the
corner of a bolted plate; it's because the bolts are usually so rusted that
when the plate is removed with a prybar they break the cast bolt holes. I
acquired a couple plates from a salvage year in Iowa but used a rust remover to
soak the bolts well and then unbolted from the car frame. My best find was in
Cedar Rapids, IA of all places were an old 40' Q boxcar (apparently from a
local derailment) was being used as a shed @ a scrap iron dealer. He thought I
was crazy to ask for the plate but let me have it for free! I have also found
them on old wood box cars which are by far the easiest to remove and sometimes
have the rare CB&Q-cast (Aurora Shops foundry) air brake diagram plates with a
linear drawing for he undercar brake lines and CB&Q initials. Kind of going
thru several subjects here in the course of this post. I have also acquired a
few such brake plates from 100 years old tank cars used in stationery storage.
From my experience, carbuilders/railroads stopped using them in the 20's as by
then brake gear was standardized so there was not the need to indicate
how/where each piece fit, the length, etc. Any old carmen on our list???
Gerald
To: CBQ@yahoogroups.com
From: cbqrr47@yahoo.com
Date: Mon, 29 Nov 2010 19:13:42 -0800
Subject: RE: [CBQ] CBQ steel 4 bay hopper on the NIFA branch in Aurora IL
No pics, I was dumb enough then to think it would all last forever. Why take
pictures of 100 ton hoppers? There would be a lot of them, and they would be
around for a long time. Well, I was right about one thing, they have been
around for a long time! But, they were classy looking with their black paint,
clean white lettering and Scotchlite "Q" emblems. And one other thing, I
remember, was the Hanover Bank & Trust Co. trust plates, in the upper left hand
corner. BTW, this was first unit coal train operated by the "Q", i.e. with unit
train rates. This was a BIG DEAL and everything about it got special treatment.
I just didn't think about the history being made and how it would change the
future of coal transportion.
--- On Mon, 11/29/10, Gerald Edgar <vje68@hotmail.com> wrote:
From: Gerald Edgar <vje68@hotmail.com>
Subject: RE: [CBQ] CBQ steel 4 bay hopper on the NIFA branch in Aurora IL
To: cbq@yahoogroups.com
Date: Monday, November 29, 2010, 7:25 PM
Quite a memory to share John - any pics you could put in the next Zephyr?
Gerald
To: CBQ@yahoogroups.com
From: cbqrr47@yahoo.com
Date: Mon, 29 Nov 2010 15:49:17 -0800
Subject: RE: [CBQ] CBQ steel 4 bay hopper on the NIFA branch in Aurora IL
Boy, does that photo make me feel old and bring back memories! I saw the first
load of coal loaded into this class, at the Zeigler #3 mine, in July, 1963. The
Christopher switch engine ( a single SD-7 motor) brought them in one cut of one
hundred cars, in pure sequence order! They were loaded with 11/2 inch utility
coal bound for a power plant in or near the Twin Cities. The switch engine took
them in two fifty car cuts to the North Yard at Christopher. There four GP-20
motors (very clean ones) hooked on for the road trip. These were very rare in
the Coalfields as was the Class NE-12 waycar at the rear end. The company
photographer was present to record the departure as were all of the local
officials.
--- On Mon, 11/29/10, Gerald Edgar <vje68@hotmail.com> wrote:
From: Gerald Edgar <vje68@hotmail.com>
Subject: RE: [CBQ] CBQ steel 4 bay hopper on the NIFA branch in Aurora IL
To: cbq@yahoogroups.com
Date: Monday, November 29, 2010, 7:52 AM
My son & I photographed it's 'twin' in East Dubuque Sat, Nov. 27! Talk about
coincidences! (taking last of Kodachrome slides but will see if we can get a
scan up later; part of a string of 5 BN related hoppers near where BN had a
derailment Wed that closed the line briefly near East Cabin).
Gerald
To: CBQ@yahoogroups.com
From: dlgrobe@ameritech.net
Date: Sun, 28 Nov 2010 18:59:57 -0800
Subject: [CBQ] CBQ steel 4 bay hopper on the NIFA branch in Aurora IL
Just wanted to let everyone know I posted some shots of CBQ 160926. I found the
car on the NIFA branch on the west side of Aurora yesterday. The BNSF has a
string of gondolas and open hoppers down by Sullivan Rd, they are using them
for the cleanup of garbage left by the MOW crews that worked the branch this
summer. Nice to see something with CBQ reporting marks still out there. I
thought it was one of 2 hoppers I caught last year but it turned out to be new
to me. Does anyone know how many cars that still have CBQ reporting marks are
left on the BNSF? There used to be a tank car that was in diesel service, I
caught that one at Eola a few years back. Here's the link to the photos in the
photo section.
<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/CBQ/photos/album/501465687/pic/list?mode=tn&order=ordinal&start=1&dir=asc>
Dan
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