Lowville & Beaver River box cars in Utica

There are 6 or 7 green boxcars marked LBR on the NYSW track in Utica by the Foodland Warehouse. They are marked LBR numbers 4728, 4715, 4727, one red one, and two more green ones that I could not get a number on. I am assuming these are Lowville & Beaver River cars.

Does anyone know the current use of these cars. In use, storage, sold, scrap?

I have no idea what the status of these cars is, I first thought they were going south to binghamton. While I can think of at least two area businesses that need boxcars, I dont see why the need for the LBR boxcars unless thats what the NYS&W had on hand.

Thanks.

Does anyone know the history of these cars? They've been patched at least once but they look to be in Penn Central Green. There is also at least one car not marked LBR. I'll try to read it and see where this car is from.

These cars came up from Sherburne some time ago. They were subsequently returned to their present location. Believe Baillie's Lumber, located in Smyrna, uses them to trans-ship hardwood lumber. Baillie's also has an operation in Boonville and bills itself as America's premier supplier of hardwood lumber. Sherburne is the only location, to my knowledge, on the entire Utica line where goods are shipped out. According to a friend who used to work for the Susquehanna,this company used to ship using the NYO&W. When that RR went out in 1957, they began using the DL&W Utica Line and have ever since. These cars have remained in Sherburne for weeks at a time.

Before it was Baillie Lumber in Smyrna it was Cotton & Hanlon and they were an outbound shipper on the O&W. In 1949 for instance they shipped 41 carloads.

Much of the NYO&W Smyrna business went to the DL&W in 1957 as transload out of Sherburne, this included Simmons & Mummery feed.

DL&W gained alot of the O&W business between Norwich and Utica without the need to take over the track.

These boxcars have been moved in the last few days. I heard through a friend with connections to the NYS&W that the line south of Sangerfield to Sherburne was embargoed during the winter. It may well be that those cars have now, once again, been moved down to Sherburne for usage by Baille's Lumber.

I saw them being moved Wednesday night around 5:30, Thursday there were two there and the rest were at the NYSW yard, Friday they were back in their original location. The movement Wednesday included several covered hoppers and now a few of the boxcars marked YARR are gone and the LBR ones remain.

Just an update, there are now three LBR boxcars parked under the arterial onramp, the rest have been moved and are not in the Utica yard either so they may have moved on

These four boxcars remain on the same siding. Just noticed them again today.

brockwaythemusician wrote:Thanks.

Does anyone know the history of these cars? They've been patched at least once but they look to be in Penn Central Green. There is also at least one car not marked LBR. I'll try to read it and see where this car is from.

The green LBR cars are former BCOL (British Columbia Railway) cars. The red ones seem to be of mixed heritage, although I've seen a few that were formerly RBOX cars.

I was doing some research on these cars and found a bunch of pictures I overlooked when I first asked about them. Apparently LBR had 60+ boxcars like this. I never would have thought a shortline like LBR would have that many cars. I dare say the there may be more cars than there is trackage to fit them all. I'll assume that at one point in time there was enough business there to need all those cars.

Not sure if anyone knows but does more income come to LBR from business on the line or on rentals of their rolling stock?

http://www.rrpicturearchives.net/rsList.aspx?id=LBR

Let's do some simple math. [:)]

If each of those boxcars is 60 feet in length. And there are 60 boxcars, that is 3600 feet. If the LBR is 10 miles in length, which the internets tell me it is, then that is 5280 x 10 which is..... 52800 feet of track without counting sidings, runarounds, or other tracks. So it'd take a a little under 880 (can't foul crossings) to fill up the entire line minus sidings.

These four boxcars still remain in the same location to this day. The Utica crew will often set out other cars on this siding and usually couple them to the LBRR boxcars. Very interesting why these cars have remained in the same locale for so long.

Maybe two weeks ago on Monday the 20th I saw one of those boxcars in a set with 5 other boxcars being left out at the Smurfit plant behind the New Hartford Shopping Center, this was probably around 7:00 in the evening. The rest were mixed UP and CSX boxcars. NYSW left them there overnight. I think this is the only time I've seen one of them being used with other cars in the past year.

Just so you know, these boxcars like other cars marked for GVT roads can be found anywhere on the North American railroad system. These specific cars just happen to be in this pool.