Virginia Sightings

Railcars whether private or railroad constantly criss-cross the North American rail network carrying goods of an endless variety of different customers. While we as modelers can easily model the rest of the "network" through modeled interchanges or staging yards, some modelers exchange or share cars with other like theme/era modelers. Beyond your normal empty - load car cycle cars also transit to a host of shops for work that could range from cleaning, painting, and light repairs to full rebuilds extending their lifespan.

Shannon Crabtree snapped photos of various pieces of Michigan Interstate equipment transiting the Virginia Midland and Virginia Central over the past month. Since Shannon's VMS contract shop does work for MCIS, it is not uncommon to see our equipment in Virginia. Let's take a look at what each piece of rolling stock was 

MCIS 8590 loaded for Specialized Beverage with cases of "Laker Lager" coming from Great Lakes Brewing. While a regional brew folks in the MidAtlantic really got a taste for it.

MCBT 8498 loaded with wood veneer from Michigan's Upper Peninsula for Klotz Distributors.

Three FMC 4700s for beet pulp/pellet and agricultural service at Fredricksburg Flats. Just like the ACF car below they had transited to VMS for interior lining and finishing details. It didn't take very long for vandals to tag their "art" on two of the cars.

One of MCIS' rebuilt ACF 4600s now in malted barley service for Huron Malting. The cars were painted by FRS in Michigan but the interior linings and final detailing / decaling were completed at VMS. The cars are in the "stealth" scheme that has been used in the past year on covered hopper repaints. Additionally these repaints received an American flag in the upper left corner similar to PAR's boxcars.

MCIS ballast hopper at Virginia Central yard heading to VMS for dump door refitting and solar panels for automatic operations. 

**Backstory - these cars all went to Shannon Crabtree for weathering, as you can see from the pictures his work is awesome which is a testament to his modeling skills. Check out his blog for more photos and videos**

Everyone have a great Halloween in case I don't get my Late October post out. Life can be crazy with kiddos so you never know what your schedule will hold.

GM