I am qustioning the accuracy of the scheme used by mckean on their 50' ps-1 boxcar. I am looking for a picture of the car as it would appear in the early-mid 80's. The car is still lettered reporting marks for ACL. Is that accurate for my time period? or would it have been relettered to SBD? If you know of any websites that contain a picture, please advise.

Thanks, Bryan Williams

-- Brayn Williams (kcwbmw@aol.com), April 13, 1999

Answers

On a related subject, we have seen two hoppers still painted in ACL markings and colors recently up at CSX's Raleigh Yard. Nice to see the old fellows still in original paint. Marc

-- Marc L. Hamel (gigsup@aol.com), April 14, 1999.

There were still a good number of cars with ACL lettering and initials around as late as the early 1980s. However, SCL began a program around 1981-82 of restenciling nearly all such remaining ACL and SAL cars with SCL initials and SCL numbers. These were applied with just a paint "patch", leaving the rest of the car lettered in the ACL scheme. Many stayed this way for years afterward. When Seaboard System took over at the end of 1982, some cars received a patch with SBD initials and new SBD numbers, but there seemed to be relatively few of these compared to the SCL-patch cars.

So the answer to your question is that by 1983 or 84, most ACL-scheme cas still around would have had SCL initials and numbers, although some SBDs might be seen with perhaps a rare few still in ACL. Checking Ry. Equipt. Registers of the period would confirm.

Larry Goolsby

-- Larry Goolsby (LGoolsby@aphsa.org), April 14, 1999.