The Philadelphia Chapter of the

National Railway Historical Society

Established in 1936

Most pictures you see featuring railroad subjects are of the motive power on the head end, and the rest of the train is just background. But that "background" often makes up 95% or more of the train consist, and a true historical perspective would be skewed without preserving a record of those cars. Fortunately there are many among us who like to capture as much of the surrounding history as possible, and the freight cars are getting their due.

Certain geographic areas feature specific types of cars. When you say Morrisville PA, you really mean the US Steel Fairless Works. A pale ghost of its former self during the PRR and PC days, even into the Conrail era, hordes of cars associated with steel could be found there. The most common of those would be the lowly gondola. April 1999 was a transition period, as NS and CSX were in the process of cutting the baby (Conrail) in half, or more accurately, 58-42. During the period preceding the split, CSX was having the Conrail cars destined for it restenciled NYC, while the NS cars retained their Conrail era markings. Here we have cars from two previous transition eras as well, as PRR, PC, CR and NYC gondolas awaiting assignment sit in the Morrisville B yard (C yard was intermodal and A yard had been long abandoned but in 2003 it will now house an NJT maintenance facility).

NYC G45 592057