THE 80's, PT14; TRUCKS

Hillsdale in the 80's had lots of truck traffic thanks to the warehouses...

A Fredrickson Motor Express semi leaving downtown. This company was acquired by Old Dominion Freight Line in 2000.

A Coca-Cola truck leaving town after making deliveries to the local stores and restaurants. Unlike the other companies seen here, Coke is still in business!

An APA semi entering town, headed for the warehouses. Like Frederickson, APA, too, is a fallen flag closing down in 2010. At one time, it was the fourth largest interstate carrier in the nation.

A local driver brings a 20' Maersk container into town. The scheme represented on the container is from the 70's. Maersk, too, is still in business.

A Rollins Leasing Co. semi rolls through downtown. Both Rollins and GMC General tractors were fairly common in the 80's, along with 40' trailers, but things changed in the 90's. 40' trailers mostly vanished, GMC left the heavy-duty truck market, selling its line to Volvo, and Rollins was acquired by Penske Leasing in 2001.

An Overnight semi prepares to turn down Market Street to get to the warehouses. Like all of the other trucking companies seen here, Overnight is also long gone; it is now UPS Freight. UPS purchased Overnight from the Union Pacific Railroad in 2005, and formed UPS Freight in 2006.

THE 80's PT13

Still with the 80's train...

A three-pack of boxcars, including a P&LE car in Penn Central/New York Central Jade Green.

A close-up of the Savannah State Docks Railroad car, done in typical 70's style.

More tank cars, including a Dry Branch Kaolin car. The car with the black band is for hydrochloric acid.

A pair of CSX boxcars, including a plug door car on the right. CSX had just begun repainting its equipment during the late 80's, including some ex-FGE cars, like the second one.

Another new-to-the-scene company was Norfolk Southern, aka NS. These two ex-Norfolk and Western auto parts cars are headed west from the Green Island, NY Ford plant, which made radiators and springs. Unfortunately, this plant closed in 1989; yet another blow to the young AP&W.

An ex-Frisco wide vision caboose brings up the markers. By the late 80's, the caboose era was coming to a close and most Frisco cabooses were retired without being re-numbered, let alone repainted. Still it's nice to see one on the end of a train again.

THE 80's; PT12

More from last week's train...

An ex-Railbox boxcar, now owned by Canadian National. Railbox sold a number of surplus cars to member railroads during the late 80's. Note the bright orange TP&W car behind it; a relic of the late 70's era of per-diem car rates.

Another per-diem boxcar, this one owned by the Bath & Hammondsport. A change in rules allowed cars to collect income, even if they weren't on home rails. This resulted in numerous short lines leasing large fleets of boxcars to take advantage of said rules. The rules were reversed in the early 80's, an a surplus of cars resulted, but for a short time, colorful boxcar fleets returned to the nation's rails.

A trio of tank cars, two white, one blue.

The second white car is leased by Reilly Industries from ACF.

A boxcar from merger partner Frisco.

A trio of brown tank cars. And you thought only boxcars are brown!
Happy Veteran's Day to my fellow vets!

THE 80'S; PT11

During the late 80's, leased locomotives began showing up on the AP&W's rails, as seen here by EMD Lease 779; an ex-Conrail (nee-Penn Central 7979) GP38-2.

The second unit is 454, an ex-Frisco GP38-2. Note that while both have rooftop flashing beacons, the Frisco unit has a full-sized fuel tank, while the leased unit has a smaller tank.

A short string of covered hoppers, including a pair of ADM cars, is on the head end.

Behind the grain hoppers is a string of LPG (liquid petroleum gas) tank cars, returning back west empty.

Not all of the tank cars are black; witness this pair of white GATX cars, which are for anhydrous ammonia, used in fertilizer. These cars were a frequent sight during the spring, as local farmers prepped their crops.

The second car shows off its blue GATX logo, while a Conrail cylindrical hopper follows, with a RailBox boxcar behind that. Which is where we'll follow up next week.