THE 60's; PT5

Finishing the train -and the 60's- from last week...

The final set of reefers in the train is this pair of orange ART cars, with the heralds of Norfolk & Western and the Missouri Pacific, two of the owner roads. The N&W inherited its ownership via its purchase and merger with the Wabash in  1964.

After the brightly colored reefers come the more common drab brown boxcars. The first one is a 50' CGW (Chicago Great Western) car with a large "DF" to indicate restraining devices for "Damage-Free" loading. The next three cars are 40' APRR boxcars with two different slogans.

As seen here, not only do the cars have different slogans, but different lettering schemes as well. The car on the right has the "THE ALL-PURPOSE ROAD" slogan, along with APPALACHIAN RR spelled out over the reporting marks; the car on the left has the "ALWAYS PROFESSIONAL SERVICE" slogan, with a small APPALACHIAN at the top corner of the car. As indicated by the different car numbers, these are also two different boxcars; note the different roofs.

Another pair of 50' boxcars, a New York Central car and a Detroit & Toledo Shore Line car. The D&TS served much of the Detroit area auto industry, leading to its slogan "Expressway For Industry". The line was jointly owned by the Grand Trunk Western and the N&W (inherited from the Nickel Plate). GTW bought out the N&W's half in 1981 and merged the D&TS.

A trio of bright, white hopper cars, owned by W.R. Grace & Co., returning to Clifton, NJ.

Another pair of hoppers follow a Hooker Chemicals tank car. The grey hopper is a AP car loaded with corn meal, while the other hopper is an ACF demonstrator.

ACFX 44504 is ACF's (American Car Foundry) demo car, showcasing the advantages of their "Center Flow" concept: by eliminating the center sill underframe, the car now could be unloaded more easily and efficiently, as there were no longer any interior obstructions for the load to catch on. The concept caught on, and the modern covered hopper car -with single full-width hopper outlet gates, instead of twin gates- was born. Bringing up the rear is the traditional red caboose, with the road name stretched across nearly the entire side of the car, and "ALWAYS PROFESSIONAL SERVICE" prominently displayed at the top. 809 is part of the I-9 class of cabooses, and was purchased during the early 50's. The I-9's were a bit shorter than most of the cabooses purchased by the AP, measuring only 32' long; most AP cabooses were 35' long. Nearly 70 years after it was built, 809 lives on as a display piece in a park.
This is probably the last "60's" look at Hillsdale. I've decided to concentrate on the modern era (post 1980's) and so much of the equipment seen these past few weeks will be sold off as time goes on (but not all of it). And so, back to the present time next week!