"Ship With Susie-Q" 40-foot Boxcars

lvrr325 wrote:At the risk of veering majorly off topic [...] As for the NYS&W itself, a "heritage" loco is highly unlikely - maybe you're just joking around, I don't know, but given their very anti-railfan nature of late, I doubt they'd do it even if they were rolling in dough.

lvrr, don't worry, veering off topics is what I do best no worries. And I was just kidding about the heritage locomotives. After all, they're running a business, not a tourist line. Some rail enthusiasts often forget that about freight or passenger railroad companies (I also am guilty of this some times, not going to deny that), they don't do these things for fun, they do it for money . . . well maybe some times they do things for fun on occasion

(In an attempt to stay on topic) Are any Susie-Q boxcars still in service? The one's with Susie holding the lantern? (and blowing the topic focus right out the window) And does anyone have any photos of them? I want to get decals made for one, but I can't find one that's clear enough or a good profile shot of the logo or reporting marks.

Those Susie-Q boxcars were short-lived, and I assume all retired by 1980. I know one or two were kept in Little Ferry for storage, but I think those were all cut up in a general housecleaning in the 1980s...

A quick Google search for "susquehanna susie-q" turned up...

http://www.flickr.com/photos/25854373@N03/4055806106/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/25854373@N03/4058168784/

According to the photographer, this boxcar still exists in Butler, NJ.

Models have been produced on many scales over the years:

http://shodell.net/mytrains/images/P0006080.JPG

Hope this helps.


-otto-

I always thought (but could be wrong) that there was only the ONE Susie-Q boxcar, and it was an "unofficial" paintjob by one employee or one shop crew, or something like that...I dont think it was ever actually in service..
(the old wood boxcar might have been painted in the 60's, right it still sits today, and never turned a wheel while wearing that paint scheme..)

anyone know for sure?

I have one in G-gauge!



(Made by Aristocraft)

Scot

I was wrong!
check it out:


XN 501 - LITTLE FERRY NJ - 12/27/1979 - {GARY STUEBBEN Photo}
http://www.rr-fallenflags.org/nysw/nysw-xm501ags.jpg

XM 501 - Jul 84 {Tom Hodupski Photo}
http://www.rr-fallenflags.org/nysw/nysw501.jpg

XM 502 - Little Ferry NJ - - {Karl Geffchen Photo}
http://www.rr-fallenflags.org/nysw/nysw502akg.jpg

XM 504 - - 08/72 - {Karl Geffchen Photo}
http://www.rr-fallenflags.org/nysw/nysw504akg.jpg

XM 504 - Little Ferry NJ - 1976 - {Tim Darnell Photo} - w/502 & 101
http://www.rr-fallenflags.org/nysw/nysw504at.jpg

Plus 506 and 507..more pictures here:
http://www.rr-fallenflags.org/nysw/nysw.html

Looks like there were as many as 7 steel cars, plus the wood one..
I never knew that!

Scot

Pretty cool!

Thanks for the links!

Charlie

scottychaos wrote:I was wrong!

Looks like there were as many as 7 steel cars, plus the wood one..
I never knew that!

Scot

There were 25 of these cars 501-525. Most of them were sold off fairly quickly. There was a brief period in the early to mid-1960's where they used Susie-Q in ads. I have one from 1964 that was in a Bergen County atlas! At least once they had a contest and named a young lady Miss Susie-Q. A poor man's Phoebe Snow.

Somebody found one sold off used for storage and not on live rail not that long ago. Maybe further down this board.

i had seen a lide on ebay of a maroonish NYSW boxcar that was more modern. It did not have friction bearings like some of the pics on railfan.net. Anyone know when NYSW stopped using its own rolling stock besides MOW stuff?

One of these boxcars sits at 27Th st., Paterson, NJ, in the Faircough Coal yard. Can't remember the number, and I have not been there since 2005 so for all I know it may be cut up by now.

I seem to dimly recall seeing one of these in the 1980s-- I so dimly recall it, in fact, that I don't remember where on the Suskie I was!

A few mentions of models; Micro-Trains has done three iterations in N Scale. The quality of the paint job improved over the three releases, as you can see on my webpage on the topic "If You Knew Susie":

http://www.irwinsjournal.com/umtrr/ms-nysw.htm

Incidentally, I have a copy of the third run with the label autographed by Walter Rich. He came to this area for a seminar that was open to the public, and I was all over that. Micro-Trains had just released the car, and I got three copies direct from the factory. I gave Walter one, had him autograph the labels on the other two, kept one of those and sent the other back to Micro-Trains. It's a prized part of my accumulation.

There is a slide on ebay of NYSW boxcar 138. Its one of the maroon boxcars on rollerbearing trucks and not friction bearing.

Ok i thought i had the slide auction still saved. It was a former Penn Central box car still painted in the penn central green but with painted over letters and a NYSW patch. Does anyone know how long this lasted on NYSW? It still had the original PC number on it.

The pre-Delaware Otsego NYS&W got involved in the short-line per diem boxcar craze and had some number of the railbox type boxcars. They were actually owned by a number of investors as part of a limited partnership scheme. When that investment bubble burst the owners of these cars sold them off.

The PC jade green boxcars were originally purchased by the Fonda, Johnstown & Gloversville. Eventually all of the DO roads ended up have some assigned to them.

i guess its safet to say they've all been scrapped?"