Last ride for the KELX (Kellogg's) box cars.

[PriorrightsConrail]

Kellogg's has 16 of the former Penn Central 60' boxcars with the KELX lettering sitting out at the gate waiting to be sent to the scrappers. They are being shipped to Kalamazoo to be cut up but NS in their infinite wisdom wants to send them via Jackson, Detroit, Toledo, Elkhart and then north on the Grand Elk. They are awaiting a billing issue to be settled as the shipper does not want to pay to have them hauled that far when he is aware that they only NEED to travel 25 miles. More information will be forthcoming.

[Ben Higdon]

They could pay to have them sent via Toledo, or pay for a special move from Battle Creek to Kalamazoo. Unless NS happened to be going over there to switch LC Howard.

[penn central]

Somewhere i have pictures of those boxcars, Believe it or not they used to go threw Durand it's been a long time since i have seen one there though about 20 years they used to go down the Holly Sub.

[GreatLakesRailfan]

IIRC, some of them were going to/from Canada via Port Huron in the last five years or so...

[ConrailDetr​oit]

I remember a post about 2 years ago of a scrapper in Battle Creek cutting up some of these cars.

[~Z~]

Here's the thread you were thinking of milineamtrak about cutting up former Kellogg cars in Battle Creek: viewtopic.php?t=15421

[bctrainfan]

Seems odd that NS wouldnt go straight to K'zoo....would they interchange them with GDLK for final delivery, or do they still have trackage rights and would deliver themselves? NS goes from Battle Creek to Augusta every day anyhow, cant just continue the last 10 miles? Also, where are they going to be scrapped in K'zoo? surprised Kellogg's didn't sell them to HMS like the last batch and just have CN shove them out their kellogg's spur and 500 yards into HMS...

PS looks like the cars have been picked up out of Kelloggs, maybe Prior has some new info

[Robert MacDowell]

Kellogg's has 16 of the former Penn Central 60' boxcars with the KELX lettering sitting out at the gate waiting to be sent to the scrappers. They are being shipped to Kalamazoo to be cut up but NS in their infinite wisdom wants to send them via Jackson, Detroit, Toledo, Elkhart and then north on the Grand Elk. They are awaiting a billing issue to be settled as the shipper does not want to pay to have them hauled that far when he is aware that they only NEED to travel 25 miles. More information will be forthcoming.

At risk of chasing the torch... do folks think they are worthy of preservation?
Boxcars in any case are not useless to railway museums. We put low-value stuff in them.

[PriorrightsConrail]

I wouldn't necessarily say that they are worth preserving. Just pointing out the end of the road for something that once upon a time was a common sight on the local railroad scene. As a resident of southern Michigan I always enjoyed seeing the KELX cars on passing trains. And a dedicated small fleet of boxcars owned by a non-railroad entity is indeed a rare breed these days. Just kind of sad to see the end of the line for these cars.

[KenB]

Yep hate to see those boxcars go. Did see them around Detroit but they probley hit their 40 year life span. What is more important is net seeing ceral product move by rail at all. Railroads are a service orginization and without loads they don't run trains.

[Ypsi]

What train will these ride to the scrapper? Or rather dd they figure out what route to move te cars?

[TrainWatcher]

What train will these ride to the scrapper? Or rather dd they figure out what route to move te cars?

Simple.... its a train that goes on the Michigan Line then to Toledo and then Elkhart.... now what train could that be??? Lets logically think about this...

[ns8401]

What train will these ride to the scrapper? Or rather dd they figure out what route to move te cars?

Simple.... its a train that goes on the Michigan Line then to Toledo and then Elkhart.... now what train could that be??? Lets logically think about this...

The question is did they get the billing figured out so it didn't have to take the long way...

[ConrailDetr​oit]

Its so dumb that NS wants to send them to Elkhart when they could go directly to Kalamazoo. They must not have much sense.

[AARR]

Its so dumb that NS wants to send them to Elkhart when they could go directly to Kalamazoo. They must not have much sense.

Its very difficult for large organziations, whether it be business, government, religous, etc. to do something different from their normal routine. I would suspect there are people in NS who are rolling their eyes because they cant just to the cars directly from Battle Creek to Kalamazoo but dont dare say anything or risk consequences from their bosses.

Usually in big organizations its the legal department that unlitamtely decides whether to do something different from their normal routine and legal tends to be very very cautious.

Then the risk department gets invovled to determine the potential financial consequences of the move.

And it goes on and on.

But this is another example how a big company will do something very ineffecient yet make money by doing so effecient

[TrainWatcher]

What train will these ride to the scrapper? Or rather dd they figure out what route to move te cars?

Simple.... its a train that goes on the Michigan Line then to Toledo and then Elkhart.... now what train could that be??? Lets logically think about this...

The question is did they get the billing figured out so it didn't have to take the long way...

I don't disagree. Just saying he asked "what train"

[Ypsi]

And te best part is I still don't know what train they will ride

Kidding, I do however hope NS figures this out soon

[bctrainfan]

Still curious, what route did they finally go to get to K'zoo? And what scrapper did they go to?

[MSchwiebert]

I'd imagine that quite a bit of cereal still moves by rail - via piggyback or double stack. I can't imagine a grocery wholesaler holding a boxcars worth of inventory, if they can get smaller, more frequent truckloads instead.

Yep hate to see those boxcars go. Did see them around Detroit but they probley hit their 40 year life span. What is more important is net seeing ceral product move by rail at all. Railroads are a service orginization and without loads they don't run trains.

[Tim]

Your right about that, while waiting to switch them one night we figured somthing like 10,000 boxes would fit in an 89 foot hi cube.