Second Hand Covered Hopper

Greetings Blog Followers,

This past week interchange partner the Atlantic Pacific Rail Road (known here as the A.P.R.R. with eporting marks AP) purchased a quantity of used cylindrical covered hoppers from the A.T.S.F. One of the newly purchased hoppers was located on a siding awaiting loading at the Empire City Cargill Grain Elevator. An alert N.Y.C.T.L. engineer spotted the car and notified the Terminal Yard Train Master. The train master knowing it was a three day weekend in observance of Memorial Day noted the following three things;
1. Workers at the N.Y.C.T.L. Paint Shop were off duty.
2. A.P.R.R. CEO Sir Neal M would gladly pay the holiday wages to have the car lettered and numbered for the A.P.R.R.
3. The Cargill Grain Elevator was also closed for the day.

A plan was then put in place to have the empty covered hopper brought into the Terminal Yard Paint Shop where it would be repainted and then spotted back in place on the siding near the Cargill Grain Elevator. The Paint Shop foreman contacted a few volunteers who agreed to report in and take care of the needed painting and lettering.

Late Sunday afternoon and all is quiet at the North Side Yard and the siding across the main where a group of covered hoppers sit waiting to be switched into the Cargill Grain Elevator for loading. The covered hoppers closest to us have already been loaded and are waiting to be made into a unit train and head out of town.  Note the brown A.T.S.F. covered hopper looking suspiciously at the newly patched A.P.R.R. covered hopper. You can almost hear a "don't I know you from somewhere?"

Just like that the A.P.R.R. has added a covered hopper into it's fleet. Some blue painter's tape, some gray rattle can spray paint and the A.P.R.R. decals and this car is back in revenue service before anyone even knew it was moved. Being a contract paint shop for the A.P.R.R. means that the N.Y.C.T.L. Paint Shop has the materials on hand to accomplish these projects in a timely manner. 

The new AP 314783 waits patiently for Tuesday morning to be loaded. The quick weekend maneuver by the N.Y.C.T.L. will allow the A.P.R.R. to be paid for the Cargill Load.  

1/87th Scale Sir Neal Himself stops to chat with some friends at Dino's Pizza Parlor. Always a class act 1/87th Scale Sir Neal is ordering lunch and dinner for the men and women at the N.Y.C.T.L.'s Terminal Yard complex who made the quick conversion possible.