Category Archives: Freight Cars

Freight Car Friday #17 – AC 238459

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AC 238459 at the Steelton yard RIP track on August 19, 2004. This is one of 70 cars from the 2401-2501 series rebuilt in 1998 by Wisconsin Central with side stakes for handling pulpwood. These cars were randomly rebuilt and renumbered in no particular ordering. The colours on this car indicate its British Columbia Railway heritage, so it was previously one of 50 cars numbered AC 2426-2475 which were acquired in 1980 from BCIT 818450-818519 series.

Edit: since this post, I’ve obtained detailed roster and renumbering information for these AC flatcars. This information reveals that this car’s former history is ex-AC 2496 (2495-2501 series), ex-NAFX 53293, ex-CNIS 603519 (603500-603746 series), ex-BCIT unk. (818200-818449 series)

The 2495-2501 series was acquired in late 1994, with 5 of the 7 cars being rebuilt in 1998 to AC 238458-238462.

Freight Car Friday #16 – AC 238544

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ACR from Blair 024

AC 238544 seems to have been involved in a recent mishap when photographed by Blair Smith at Steelton yard in 2001. This is one of 60 cars acquired in late 1997 by Wisconsin Central for pulpwood service and assigned to the ACR. It was originally one of a group of 150 cars built by National Steel Car in 1977 for Kimberly Clark and used to transport pulpwood logs to a pulp mill in Terrace Bay, Ontario. Eventually however this fleet was dispersed.

Freight Car Friday #15 – AC 238156

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AC 238156 is one of 96 “new” pulpwood cars that were acquired by Wisconsin Central in late 1995 for service on the Algoma Central Railway. These 66′ inside length bulkhead flatcars were acquired second-hand from CP Rail and rebuilt with side stakes for pulpwood.

This car was photographed in Cochrane, Ontario on July 16, 2013 heading empty back to Hearst with several other AC and WC marked pulpwood flatcars for interchange back to CN.

Freight Car Friday #14 – QGRY 80188

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This old QGRY (Quebec-Gatineau Railway) boxcar was originally built in 1964 by Hawker-Siddeley for Canadian Pacific and amazingly enough in 2004 still carries its original as-delivered paint job, when the majority of these cars were repainted CP Rail throughout the 1970s and 1980s.

Photographed in the former ACR Steelton yard in August 2004, this car was probably loaded with pulp or paper from the pulp mill at Espanola on the Huron Central Railway (Huron Central and Quebec Gatineau are both subsidiaries of Genesee Rail One Canada), interchanged to CN to travel to destinations in the midwest United States.

Freight Car Friday #13 – CPAA 207289

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CP (ex-CPAA) 207289 50′ boxcar in the former ACR Steelton yard, August 19, 2004.

Most likely loaded with paper or woodpulp from the pulp mill at Espanola, interchanged to CN to head into the midwest United States, or possibly provided to the St. Marys Paper mill in Sault Ste. Marie.

Cars like this were previously also a common sight hauling baled pulp from mills on the north shore of Lake Superior south over the ACR from Franz.