1969 Plymouth commercial featuring a train, cars were vulnerable to damage during rail transport in those days.
I can attest to that. I can remember back in the late 70's when I first started driving truck I was on rt 1 in New Jersey near the Skyway bridge near Newark and the airport. There are a ton of rail lines in that area. As I approached one of those lines I saw a string of open auto rack cars, it could have been 7 or 8 cars. What caught my eye was that every car on the top level were convertibles! Whether they were built that way or not! Yup, all that was left were bent back windshields and no roofs! I guess the dispatcher didn't take into account that at that there wasn't as much clearance for triple level cars. That had to be a big bill to pay off.
On another note, has anyone heard that the UP is looking into the psooibility of restoring a Bigboy to steam? There are several articles on this on Trains magazine website. This would definitely make me take a trip out west to see this thing run. I'm already a fan of UP's steam program and the other big power they had like the Centennials. I'm an N-scaler and most of my stuff is centered around the UP and also the Pennsy.
Here's a link to the Bigboy story
http://trn.trains.com/Railroad News...to restore Big Boy for excursion service.aspx
