I always like to see “fallen flag” rail cars in a train. A fallen flag is a rail car or locomotive still decorated for a railway that doesn’t exist any more. Examples below include the Chicago & Northwestern, SOO Line, Burlington Northern, and the Milwaukee Road. These were railways that went bankrupt or were merged into other railways, and are no longer known by these names.
Here are some “fallen flags” and a few producer cars as well. I believe a lot of these cars, if not all, are in potash service now instead of grain service. I saw them on a couple of CP trains one morning.
Chicago & Northwestern
Note the “BAD DOOR” painted on one of the three doors on the bottom of the car…
The ex Chicago & Northwestern cars can be spotted by the logo that persists on the side – either “Chicago and North Western System” or “NorthWestern – Employee Owned”. Here’s the logo from the car above, shown beside a clearer and older logo I saw on a car in Chatham, Ontario in September 2012.
I like how they kept the same logo design when the company was sold to its employees in 1972 (to stave off bankruptcy, I believe). In the end, the CNW was acquired by Union Pacific in April 1995.
Burlington Northern
There are a fair number of green Burlington Northern cars rolling around still. BN merged with Santa Fe on the last day of 1996 and became today’s BNSF. BN itself was formed by merging the CB&Q, Great Northern, Northern Pacific and the Spokane, Portland & Seattle in 1970. (family tree).
The Katy
The Missouri-Kansas-Texas Railroad, shortened to MKT, was often known as the “Katy” for obvious reasons. I don’t see many MKT cars but the big letters are hard to miss. The Katy was another railway acquired by Union Pacific, in 1988.
The Milwaukee Road
I see quite a few Milwaukee Road cars around Winnipeg. The Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Paul & Pacific was commonly known by the shorter “Milwaukee Road” moniker and was a very ambitious east-west railroad. One of the more unique aspects of the Milwaukee Road was its decision to electrify portions of its route through the Rocky Mountains and the Cascades. The railroad was eventually sold off in pieces. You can read all about it here.
SOO Line
I saw two different SOO Line cars on that day in April. I won’t get into the differences between the cars, since I covered SOO Line cars back in February 2018.
Co-Op Cars
Quite a few grain cars were/are held by farmer’s co-operatives in Canada and the USA. The Saskatchewan Wheat Pool and Alberta Wheat Pool cars were well known in Canada and the US had their own co-operative owned cars. Here are a few examples I saw in April.
Above is AEX 25418, a former Farmer’s Co-Op Grain Association car from Benedict, Nebraska. According to this, the company dissolved in 1983.
The car above is a former Farmland Industries car, now lettered for CP. The Farmland Industries co-operative was very large in its time. It declared bankruptcy in 2002.
This car is lettered for Wellens & Company but bears the PLCX reporting mark now. Wellens & Company still exists but I guess they don’t own this car any more.
I’ll end with this very banged-up car of indeterminate origin, heading off to the scrapper. It has seen better days…
Just One More Thing
If you like fallen flags, you’ll probably like these posts!
- Fallen Flags Train (May 2017)
- Whispers of the Rock (June 2020)
- Fallen Flags at Lorette (October 2019)
Thanks for sharing these cars, Steve. We see some of them here on the CN Kingston Sub, although not MKT and Co-op.
You might be interested to know that PLCX 16341 Wellens is one of the cars that the Province of Manitoba leased waaaay back in 1980. The weld marks for the provincial crest/logo give it away, still barely visible among all that other rust! So it’s been treading the rails there for well over 40 years, still carrying grain!
Eric
Hi Eric, that’s an interesting detail on the Wellens car. I admit I am not good at spotting that mark for the provincial crest, so thanks for catching it!
How I miss the days when as a young boy I would sit at a RR crossing and read the logo on cars passing and dream of the far off places they originated—it was a fascinating time for a young trail fan!
I imagine it was, Bob! Today’s cars are pretty boring in comparison to the cars of the 60s, 70s and 80s with per diem “railroads” and a multitude of class 1 railways before the mergers.
That’s a nice collection of fallen flag pictures, Steve. It still surprises me just how many Milwaukee Road hoppers are roaming around and how the paint on these cars is generally in fairly good shape, considering that the MILW has been defunct since the mid-1980s.
Whoever painted ‘Scrap – Do Not Load’ on the side of the NAHX car didn’t get their way. Looking at the trucks, the car is clearly under load in your picture. From the railway’s perspective, a car that is beat up and rusty generates just as much revenue as one with new paint.
I see a fair number of MILW cars on CP. I don’t know if it’s the paint used or the colours used but some railways’ paint schemes last longer than others.
Funny how the scrap car is still earning $$$. Sweating the assets, I guess!
You’ve given me an idea to search through my images for fallen flags. It might be a fun exercise to see what I have. I know I’ve seen CNW, Soo, BN and a few others for sure. I have never seen a Katy car though. Catch em while you can!
I’d love to see your “fallen flags”!