Obviously a large number of these cars are in staging shelves waiting their turn to be swapped onto the railroad. But the railroad can have around 700 cars on the layout at any given time. Since the Enid District in particular has always been a large grain gathering and shipping point, grain cars are the predominate freight car type found on this part of the railroad. There are also several large grain elevators and mills on the Oklahoma Sub mainline, so these complexes increase the number of grain cars even more. Before covered hoppers became the accepted way to ship grain, box cars carried the load. However, in 1989, the covered hopper was the only way to ship grain. Around 402 of the total car ownership are covered hoppers. Around 300 ATSF covered hoppers of various manufacturers are on the roster. Most are Inter-Mountain, Atlas, Walthers, P2k, some old Front Range, and a couple of old cylindrical of undetermined origin. Also a very few Accurail are in service. In addition, there are 51 Farmland Coop covered hoppers, all Inter-Mountain. The remaining grain cars on the layout are BN and a smattering of other road names. There are also 40 ON grain cars. Since there are also mills, a large number of airslide covered hoppers are also on the layout. There are 17 ATSF, and another 21 of various road names, all are Walthers. The Champlin refinery at Enid attracts a lot of tank cars, both petroleum and LPG cars. The Farmland Ammonia plant at Fairmont also uses many covered hoppers and ammonia tank cars. The General Motors plant at Oklahoma City has a large number of auto part cars, both 60 ft and 89 ft in length, plus around 35 auto rack cars. Some of these go to the ATSF unload facility across the street from the GM plant. The Dolese Cement plant at Edmond also uses a large number of cement covered hoppers. There are OGEX unit coal cars which come from the UP at Kansas City, down through Arkansas City and to Red Rock for unloading. All of this is done off layout. The empty coal train then proceeds south to Oklahoma City, turns, and returns to Kansas City. Thus this train, which uses UP and ATSF power, comes out of staging empty, and returns to staging empty, which eliminates the need for loads in the cars. All remaining cars are various types of 1989 (with a few exceptions) era freight cars, including intermodal on the through trains and at Oklahoma City Sooner Lift. All cars have metal wheel sets and Kadee couplers. Obviously not all cars are on the railroad at a given time. Fiddle shelves are located near various staging tracks so that consists can be varied. In addition to these freight cars, the Santa Fe business fleet is well represented, with the Atchison, Topeka, Mountaineer, one sleeper, the full dome car, a baggage car and the theatre car, the Strong all on the railroad. These cars, with the exception of the full dome, are all brass, Coach Yard, Overland, and Stewart. The Santa Fe I control still uses several (cabooses) waycars in 1989. The various road switchers working in the Oklahoma City area have waycars because of the backup moves. The local between Enid and Kiowa, and between Enid and Oklahoma City also use waycars because of several switching moves along the line. Most unit grain trains have waycars, my excuse being with all those grain cars, it is helpful for the operator to know the train hasn’t separated somewhere along the line. The bright red waycars provide a visual verification that the train is in tact. |
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