Coal Cars-Part 4 The "Oddballs"

It's been way too long, but I haven't forgotten that I promised a part 4 to the Coal Car series, where I would show some of what I call the "oddballs", or cars that don't seem to fit anywhere else.

Most of these cars will run in a number of trains from what I have seen. They are most common in the BNSF Becker trains and the Midwest Energy trains bound for Superior, but I also see them in Wisconsin bound trains as well. I don't have a lot of details about them, except that they exist and you will see them if you are out fanning the area.

One of the more interesting cars I see is this style of bathtub gon. There are some DEEX and BN cars in this style as well, but I seem to see them more with odd reporting marks like this GEMX unit.


I don't know the purpose for the angled tub area-it can't be for clearance as the common cars don't have it. It is very noticeable in a train though.

This NCUX car sports another unusual tub area. These unusual tubs seem to have been overcome in the market by the convetional straight tub, but there are still a number of this style car in service.


Next up is a "conventional" hopper cars I shot passing through Staples one day. These are not something I normally see but they qualify as strange coal carriers so I thought it belonged in this post. Also in this train were similar cars with the reporting marks GCCX and GIEX. The occasional presence of cars of this type in merchandise trains tells me that someone, somewhere, is still receiving coal by the carload. Any hints where these cars are headed?


I think this might have been a flood reroute train, but these cars showed up for a few weeks earlier this summer. Anyone have a destination for this train?


Something that has become almost common the last couple of months are these DLRX cars sprinkled in among the regular cars. I can't recall seeing them before this spring and now they are almost a daily occurence.


And the most common "oddball" cars, if that makes any sense at all, are the FURX and CRIX cars, which seem to be remarked from something else in most cases. There must be money to be made in shuffling cars, as the reporting marks are often fresh when nothing else is.




I can't believe I almost forgot another very common reporting mark, CEFX, as shown here.


These last three are very common in the area. FURX, CRIX, and CEFX are all leasing companies that own rail equipment among other assets.

That's it for now.
Jim, out.