Railroad Forums 

Discussion relating to the operations of MTA MetroNorth Railroad including west of Hudson operations and discussion of CtDOT sponsored rail operations such as Shore Line East and the Springfield to New Haven Hartford Line

Moderators: GirlOnTheTrain, nomis, FL9AC, Jeff Smith

 #1480771  by MACTRAXX
 
JMB: The term for these platform extension cars was from the Metro-North Commuter Railroad -
They were titled "Boni" cars - for the railroad manager that came up with the idea and designed
them...Post this question at the Metro-North Forum for more information about them...MACTRAXX
 #1480785  by Backshophoss
 
They were a set of flat cars,used as platform extensions,believe to ex TTX Flat cars,gaps between cars were filled in.
 #1480866  by shadyjay
 
The (relatively new) Morning Sun book "Metro North in Color" has several pictures of them on the New Haven Line in the 80s. I thought they were pretty interesting and it made me wonder why they aren't used nowadays, vs bridge plates. I figured bridge plates are more portable and able to set up "on the fly", vs flat cars, which need to be stored somewhere, then brought to the particular station in question where they're needed, etc.
 #1480875  by Noel Weaver
 
I remember the "Boni" Cars. Ed Boni was the superintendent early on in Metro-North and a good one at that. This was his idea and they were used when the track outage on tracks 3 or 4 was going to be for days at a time for track work. They worked quite well but back then you had railroad people making decisions and not a bunch of political hacks like a lot of it is today.
Noel Weaver