Past 86 Double Dr2

86211 CP Rail (MILW) single car, 86212 2-pack. CP Rail ’s auto parts fleet includes former Milwaukee Road cars like these. The single and one car in the 2-pack have the lettering arrangement shown above. The other car in the 2-pack has the CP Rail name a few panels to the right as on the prototype for its road number. The painted door bars and area around the door latches on this batch seems to be unique to CP Rail.

86221 Union Pacific single car, 86222 2-pack. In 1983, the merger-enlarged Union Pacific adopted this paint scheme. Cars from the WP and MoPac fleets carried their original road numbers. The single car has a UP number while the 2-pack has Western Pacific and Missouri Pacific road numbers.

86231 Detroit Toledo &Ironton - Magenta double door single car, 86232 2-pack. As you would expect, DT&I had a HUGE fleet of 86 ’ auto parts cars and in a variety of paint schemes. In addition to variations of Sky Blue and Cypress Green, DT&I had these Magenta cars. This particular group was built by Penn Central in their shops for the DT&I. DT&I was owned by a PC holding company at the time. Without a doubt, DT&I had the nation ’s most colorful freight car fleet, but these magenta monsters really take the cake.

86251 Central of Georgia double door single car,86252 2-pack. This batch of CoG cars was delivered in the summer of ‘66 and initially assigned for loading in Cleveland at Ford’s Walton Hills plant. The 1,700+ mile Central of Georgia blanketed much of Georgia and Alabama with branches to Tennessee and Florida. In the early 60’s, Southern gained control of the CoG and their influence spread into the lettering styles used on CoG ’s 8,000+ car fleet.

86241 Norfolk &Western double door single car,86242 2-pack.Norfolk & Western’s 86’ boxcar fleet was very large, reflecting the importance of the auto business to predecessor Wabash whom N&W leased in 1964. This large batch was delivered in the Spring of ‘65 in this paint scheme. They were initially assigned for loading on the Chicago Heights Terminal & Transfer (now part of UP.) Note that N&W used an alternate version of the “hamburger logo” on their auto parts cars with a taller N&W. We’ll call this the “extra-meat” version of the hamburger....

86311 New York Central double door single car, 86312 2-pack. This batch of 101 cars was delivered to New York Central in 1965. Initially at least, they were assigned to carry Chrysler parts. At this point in the Central’s history, they had 9,700 route miles in 10 states and 2 Canadian provinces. The freight car fleet was a whopping 78,000+ cars. New York Central blanketed southern Michigan as well as auto manufacturing centers in Indiana, Ohio, western New York and others, making this line vital to the industry.

86321 Milwaukee Road - yellow double door single car, 86322 2-pack. Delivered to Milwaukee Road in 1977, these cars arrived in yellow with black ends, touting Milwaukee’s moniker, “America’s Resourceful Railroad.” Assembled by Greenville, they were placed in service with ACI tags and con-stencils with the format correct for the time. These cars were originally assigned for loading by Ford.

86261 Penn Central double door single car, 86262 2-pack. In addition to the huge auto parts fleet inherited from New York Central and Pennsylvania Railroads, Penn Central ordered more of these double door cars in 1969 from Pullman Standard. At this point, Penn Central had far and away the largest fleet of 86' boxcars in the country. For that matter, they had the largest freight car fleet in the country with an astounding 187,000 cars!

86271 Grand Trunk Western double door single car, 86272 2-pack. GTW has always been a major player in the movement of auto parts and the 1980 purchase and later merger of the DT&I only solidified that position. That brought GTW up to 1,500 miles with a 12,000 car fleet. In the wake of the collapse of arch-competitor Penn Central, GTW began billing itself as "the Good Track road" in a not-so-subtle dig at their deteriorating neighbor. The single in this run has blue doors, as does one car in the 2-pack. The other car in the 2-pack has silver doors.

86281 C&O Chessie System double door single car, 86282 2-pack. Although the Chesapeake & Ohio had controlled the Baltimore & Ohio since 1962, the Chessie System name and image as we see it here did not appear until more than a decade later. Many Chessie cars kept their original unpainted aluminum doors while some shops painted them right along with the body. There was no deep meaning to the color of the doors on Chessie System. On this run, the single has silver doors while the 2-pack has one car with silver doors and one car with blue doors.

86331 Missouri - Kansas - Texas double door single car, 86332 2-pack. After a number of troubled years, the Board of Directors at MKT brought in John W. Barriger III, a railroad turnaround specialist credited with saving the Monon and doing wonders for P&LE, to whip the Katy into shape. One of Barriger's priorities was to update the freight car fleet. This batch of Greenville 86' boxcars delivered in 1969 was a direct result of that program. Like neighbors MoPac and Frisco, Katy was in a position to serve auto assembly plants in the Sun Belt and contributed cars to (likely Ford) pools.

86291Illinois Central Gulf double door single car, 86292 2-pack. The 7,100 mile Illinois Central Gulf was well positioned to handle auto parts traffic between the upper midwest and central southern states and contributed these Greenville built cars to the various 86' boxcar pools accordingly. For the 1972 merger of Illinois Central and Gulf Mobile & Ohio, the IC's "split rail" logo was modified, joining the two halves and centering the dot above. In 1988, ICG changed their name back to Illinois Central but retained a version of the big I logo. In 1999, Canadian National purchased the IC and these cars joined the greater CN fleet.

86301 L&N Family Lines double door single car; 86301 2-pack. Louisville & Nashville received their last batch of 86' boxcars from Greenville in 1977. They were delivered in this Family Lines paint scheme. The Family Lines consisted of Seaboard Coast Line, L&N, Clinchfield, Georgia, Atlanta & West Point, and Western Railway of Alabama (the latter two were known together as The West Point Route.) SCL owned a significant block of L&N stock. The two together jointly owned the Clinchfield. L&N and SCL also jointly controlled the Georgia who in turn controlled the two West Point Route roads. So the Family Lines was not an encorporated entity but could be thought of as a shared marketing image. Beginning in 1983, L&N and SCL were merged as Seaboard System with the other Family Lines roads included as well. Seaboard System was already under the CSX Corp umbrella and about three years later Seaboard System changed its name to CSX Transportation.

Erie Lackawanna had a large fleet of double door 86 footers purchased from Greenville between 1965 and 1966. Like all auto parts cars, they operated in large multi-railroad pools and often spent extended periods off home rails. The yellow
“CUSHIONED CAR” logo is essentially the same as one used on similar Pennsylvania and Frisco 86 footers. This roadname will be available in 3 road numbers. 86341 Erie Lackawanna single; 86342 2-Pack.

In January of 1969, when these cars arrived from Greenville, Chicago Burlington & Quincy was preparing for merger with parents Great Northern and Northern Pacific (and sibling SP&S.) New equipment was being delivered in Cascade Green with “BURLINGTON ” in the new style lettering and CB&&Q reporting marks. After the merger, they expected to add “NORTHERN ” and change the number. However, small changes in the lettering style led BN to abandon this plan and completely repaint the cars only when they came up for major shopping. 86351 Burlington Route green single car; 86352 2-Pack.

Santa Fe Quality. In the aftermath of the failed application to merge with Southern Pacific, Santa Fe launched their “Quality Service Network” with the goal of attracting premium rates for moving selected priority traffic. They adopted a new variation of the Santa Fe logo with a stylized “Q” surrounding the traditional circle and cross logo. This was applied to the mineral red (nearly burgandy) paint job that replaced the Indian red used for many years. This roadname will be available in 3 road numbers: 86361 single car $29.85; 86362 2-Pack $59.70.