[PRR-talk] Assigned car lists may be hard to find...

[ricktipton]

Hi Jim,

1. I agree that photos is probably the way to go.  Hoping for a list may be
a little optimistic -- these pools were commonly arranged by a railroad to
serve a given customer, and were thus semi-confidential so other customers
couldn't easily complain about allocation of cars.  All "assigned" cars
were, under ICC's Car Service Directive 145, required to be "specially
equipped", whether XML (later XL) box cars with DF equipment or air-pressure
bulkheads, or covered hoppers (LO) with special linings, or gondolas with
covers or coil troughs or special tiedowns.

2. Believe at one time I had assigned cars from 25 different railroads
working out of my GE Appliance warehouses.  As an example, under CSD145, PRR
had X29F's assigned to Appliance Park (Louisville KY) and X29G's assigned to
the Hotpoint factory in Cicero IL (on B&OCT).  But 40' L&N cars for
Appliance Park (XL's with Evans DF-2 bars like the X29F's) were "Pool AA".
Down in Evansville IN, similar L&N 40-footers were "Pool AJ", assigned to
competitor Whirlpool plant there -- but I mostly knew that from AJ cars
passing through Louisville.

3. MDC once offered a bright red Katy box car with a "Return to PRR Columbus
Ohio" marking on it -- it had a late-50's Katy logo and carried DF markings.
I assume they were copying a car assigned to a Whirlpool factory in
Columbus.  But I don't remember ever actually seeing such a car -- or seeing
a picture of it.  

4.  I do happen to know that the arrangement drawings for at least one of
PRR's classes of covered hoppers listed the numbers and text of original
assignment markings.  Learned this while preparing the Keystone article on
PRR Standard Lettering for Covered Hoppers -- you'll notice I included a
table of known assignments, many taken from photographs.

5.  So far as I can determine, the practice of marking assignments on cars
began circa 1957-1958.  Back in the 70's, we mostly just went out and read
the cars as they passed through.  Today it takes a lot of digging (and even
more luck) to find this information -- marketing records typically don't get
archived.  And once computer routing took over, these markings mostly
disappeared from the car fleet.

Rick Tipton -- Louisville Kentucky
ricktipton at bellsouth.net
Pennsylvania Railroad Technical & Historical Society
Remembering PRR Lines West


-----Original Message-----

________________________________________________________________________
4a. Re: Assigned cars
    Posted by: "Jim Kehn" Prrfreak at aol.com prrshifter
    Date: Sun Jul 6, 2008 6:27 am ((PDT))

Bob

I still see some of these cars at work. Had an old Reading covered 
hopper the other week that had "return to" markings.
What I'm hoping for is a list or documentation of the various "return 
to" or assignments used by the PRR. Probably the only way this will 
come about are photos of the cars themselves.

Jim Kehn