Boxcars on the Richmond Pacific?

I received a question from Miles regarding boxcars on the Richmond Pacific…

I was wondering, is there any boxcar-based traffic on the RPRC? I see reefers (does anybody make a good N scale modern reefer?) tank cars, centerbeams, cement hoppers, grain hoppers and the occasional scrap gondola.

If so, what industry is served?

Miles list is representative of traffic on this shortline. Tank cars, covered hoppers and gondolas make up 80% of the cars on the line. The remaining 20% includes centerbeams, open hoppers refers and boxcars.  Boxcars come predominantly from the BNSF though some do show up in the cars left by the UP. The car in the image below is typical of what is commonly seen on Richmond Pacific rails. It was parked on the east end of 23rd Street Yard a couple of months back after being delivered by the BNSF.

There are only a couple of industries that receive boxcars on this line. The main one is an auto parts distribution center on Cutting Blvd near Canal Blvd. Here’s the Google sat view for you to explore.

View Larger Map

The large rectangular building in the center is the autoparts center.  It’s listed as Impact Transportation on the RPRC timetable. The tracks are sandwiched in a kind of urban cut between the north side of the building and the freeway. Here’s the view from the freeway.

The pic is less than ideal but it’s what I had on hand and you get the idea. There are two tracks down there, 322 and 323.  Boxcars are spotted at the warehouse loading doors sometimes two or three at a time. I have often seen 86 foot autoparts cars spotted here, including the SP versions with the enormous SP logos. More recently, 60 foot excess height cars are the norm. Typically, the cars are RBOX railbox cars or mineral brown BNSF boxcars. Other roadnames are seen here from time to time as well.

2nd Street Lead

The tracks serving Impact are reached using the 2nd Street Lead (track 320) which connects to the BNSF Siberia lead. The two siding tracks continue past Impact to the right to serve the BOC Gas plant which loads liquid carbon dioxide at a tank car loadout near Canal Blvd.  This is a shot of the loadout I snagged from a car on the freeway. No tank cars at the loadout, but you can see the gear more clearly with no railcars in place.

Switching 2nd Street

Switching the 2nd Street Lead is interesting as the lead is not directly connected to the rest of the RPRC’s rails. Instead, the switch crew must traverse a short stretch of the BNSF Siberia lead from BNSF Jct in order to reach it. Additionally, there is no runaround track on the 2nd Street Lead and the spurs are arranged with facing points. So the cut of cars for BOC and Impact have to be shoved down the line to reach the lead.

Here’s a diagram.

Richmond Pacific tracks are shown in blue, BNSF in pink, not all RPRC tracks are shown.

At the top just below I-580 is the 2nd Street Lead, the blue line which leaves the BNSF track at 2nd Street Junction. The RPRC Cutting Lead branches from the BNSF track at BK Junction. Both leads are reached by RPRC crews by shoving cars onto the BNSF track at BNSF Junction and then swinging onto the appropriate RPRC lead. These moves require the permission of the BNSF Yardmaster before the crew can move on the Siberia Lead.

The RPRC usually switches both the 2nd Street Lead and the Cutting lead in the evenings after 8:00pm.  The crew gets cars for 2nd Lead and Cutting Lead sorted at 23rd Street Yard, Seaver Yard and on the 8th Street Bypass. Short cut of cars bound for the 2nd Street lead or the Cutting Lead are sometimes staged on the short track (154) between Sims Jct and BNSF Jct. I have seen up to six cars waiting here for the evening shift. The track will not hold much more than that. Here’s a couple of BNSF boxcars destined for Impact later in the evening. (Note that the RPRC timetable I have lists the junction in the foreground as BNSF Jct whereas the sign says Sibera Jct.)

The boxcars are on track 154 and the BNSF Siberia Lead is in the foreground.

In the evening, cars bound for industries on the 2nd Street Lead and on the Cutting Lead are shoved up the Siberia Lead to reach their destination.

Where else do Boxcars end up on the RPRC?

The other boxcar customer on the Richmond Pacific is Channel Lumber, located on Cutting Blvd.  Referring to the map with the tracks marked on it above, the RPRC Cutting Lead runs a third of a mile along the south side of Cutting Blvd from BK Jct to reach Channel Lumber at the end of the lead.   The Cutting Lead also serves the two spurs at the IMTT plant.  At the end of the Cutting Lead, the track simply curves into the lumber plant and stubs out, there is no switch present.  In order to swap out an empty railcar at Channel Lumber, the empty car is first pulled back to the IMTT spur to get the loaded car bound for Channel Lumber into position ahead of the empty. The load is then shoved back down the the Cutting Lead to be spotted in the lumber yard. This all happens at night when cars belonging to employees from the various industries along the Cutting Lead are no longer blocking the track.

Up until recently, Channel Lumber received a steady delivery of a single loaded centerbeam or two evey night thanks to the housing boom. That has slowed over the last year to a couple of centerbeams a week. Channel Lumber occasionally receives a loaded 60 foot excess height boxcar in place of or in addition to the centerbeam. Typically the boxcar has CN reporting marks, though others show up there too including RBOX boxcars. The spur at Channel is just long enough to hold two centerbeams with both cars still on the track and the gate closed.

Boxcars may go up the Harbor Lead to Chevron though it probably happens on rare occasions.  Mostly Chevron work involves tankcars. It is also possible that boxcars go up that direction to be spotted at the Florida Street team tracks which connect to the Waterside Drill just north of Cutting Blvd. (This is a couple of miles east of where the RPRC Cutting Lead is located.)  Most of the time, I have seen covered hoppers at the team tracks, but many kinds of cars could be unloaded there including boxcars.

So that’s pretty much all the boxcar action on the Richmond Pacific.  2nd Street and Cutting see most of the boxcar moves. Having arrived from the BNSF, boxcars are later returned to Safeway Siding for collection by the BNSF, having already taken two trips on the BNSF to get to their customers. Thanks for the question Miles.

- Coxy