FGE 5145's

[ljudice]

Now here's a car that someone should do - it would really make me happy.  As well as other SOU, NS,  (CR - used to see them all the time) fans....

But seriously, did any other road than SOU buy these?  I assume these were purchased for the big Coors plant in Virginia and/or traffic to from Miller in upstate NY?  Or something else?  Anyone know the significance of the odd numbering system on SOU - some cars in the 100's,  some 700, 800 and some 400000's???

Bryan - this should be your next car!!!   (Wishful thinking)

As for modeling, there seems to be no easy substitute, although I am painting a bunch of MDC/Athearn FMC plug door cars to match some cars with some custom made decals.  But they are not really close at all....

- Lou

[jmlaboda]

What's a FGE 5145?

[central.vermont]

What's a FGE 5145?

+1
Jon

[Scottl]

And I thought Coors was made with "Rocky Mountain spring water."  This is a complete let down. 

[Brakie]

+1
Jon

Here.

http://www.rrpicturearchives.net/showPicture.aspx?id=1710947


I would like several.

[ljudice]

And I thought Coors was made with "Rocky Mountain spring water."  This is a complete let down. 

I'm sure someone knows more about this than me, but I believe they make it in Virginia with concentrate shipped in from Colorado and I would have to assume pure Virginia mountain spring water or something???

[C855B]

^^^ Yes. The concentrate is called "wort". It's shipped in CORX tanks. We used to see them daily through here (mid-IL) on the NS, but evidently the routing changed recently.

http://www.rrpicturearchives.net/showPicture.aspx?id=1190830

Doesn't answer the question about the FGE 5145's, however.

[Robbman]

They brew the beer from scratch in Shenandoah now... that's why you don't see the CORX tank cars anymore. 

[C855B]

Ah... thanks! Explains much. Also haven't seen many/any CORX grain gons recently, tho', so the production changes messed with that traffic, too.

[jmlaboda]

It would be a good car to have... there is or was a PC&F 62' model that could be cut down but that would entail a lot of work.  These insulated cars were also used at the Miller Brewing plant in Eden, N.C.  The last time I visited Eden (nearly three decades ago) there were a slew of CNW green and yellow hoppers there with grain for the brewing process... really don't know what is going on up there now... probably need to pay a visit, but then there are a lot of places I need to visit.  LOL

[daniel_leavitt2000]

Man, these are almost as needed as the waffle cars. I could use a few.

[ljudice]

These actually have a bunch of schemes:    SOUTHERN,  SOU/Claytor,  NS,  NS minimalized and
a ton of patched out, rusty schemes.

Of course all (I know of are NS)....

- Lou

[central.vermont]

Did some digging on these cars and found some diagrams online.
It's a very large .pdf file and may take some time to load. Once you
have it loaded there are two pages of interest. Pages 5 and 112.
Apparently these cars were built between 7/1977 and 8/1977. The
one thing I can not figure out is what is the outside length of this
car?
http://southernmodeler.info/SRrollingstock/SR_FRT_CAR_DGMS_1982.pdf

Jon

[jmlaboda]

There were apparently several groups of these cars built by FGE with the most noticeable ones being in the three digit range: 250 cars blt. in '77 SOU 650 - 899, and 200 cars SOU 100 - 299 in '79.  But there were more of these cars than just the three digit series... 585000 - 585199 blt. in '78, 584824 - 584999 and 585200 - 585699 blt. in 1979 and 585700 - 585923 in 1980.  These cars are all shown on pages 112 - 117 (SOU pages B3361 - B3366) of the Freight car diagram file that Jon linked too.

These were some of the last cars built by FGE (aside from some cabooses for SOU, Chessie and Mexico) and some of the most interesting, given that they had side reinforcements vs. typical ribbing that was found on most of the later Southern car fleet.  All were insulated but only 650 - 899 were specifically assigned to beer shipments, per the diagrams (but it didn't limit the others from the same service).

One thing I find curious is that some were designated RB or RBL while others were designated XPI (their class near the road number of each car) and I do not understand why this was the case.  An earlier series of Pullman Standard insulated cars, 500 - 649 were classified as RBL, though they also were not a part of the FGE fleet... possibly being built by PS.  (I don't remember seeing a lot of these cars and I use to copy complete consists back then, but the FGE cars were all over.)
http://rr-fallenflags.org/sout/sou-xl500abn.jpg
http://rr-fallenflags.org/sout/sou-xl519acd.jpg
http://rr-fallenflags.org/sout/sou-b578akg.jpg
http://rr-fallenflags.org/sout/sou-b619akg.jpg

Like the full side waffle boxcars these cars were a very noticeable Southern design and I really am not sure if there were any other roads that had them (at this length).  As mentioned earlier, there were (or are) some similar 62' cars, modeled after the PC&F cars, but few things were more unique to late-70s/early-80s Southern Railway operations than these two types of cars.  While I have no use for such, modeling the late-40s late steam era, if I were modeling a more modern era, both of these cars would be "must haves" because of their prominence in the south.

[bbussey]

Bryan - this should be your next car!!!   (Wishful thinking)

If an FGE 5145 body would fit the X58 underframe, it would be a possibility.  But there would have to be more roadnames available to do in addition to SOU and NS.