Last week I photographed the scrapped out 148XX hoppers. They were purchased from the British Columbia Railway sometime in the early 2000s and from what I understand were not used as much as they were intended.

These unique cars were retired sometime in the last 5 years and sat around the Birchwood Yard with SCRAP stenciled over their numbers. Sometime in late 2019 an American company in Brazil purchased all ten cars along with RDC 701 to be used on their operations. Of course with COVID-19 that changed many businesses and lives.

The cars were stored in Seward for a little over a year and a few weeks ago they came north on the Seward freight to be scrapped by CEI located next to the old power plant in Anchorage Yard. As of June 2nd, this is what was left. Two cars were awaiting the torch, and by now should be cut up. These images show that eventually most cars do die and become China steel. Also look at the images, this may be the only time you see both ends of a car side by side.

While not the most used cars, these were rather unique with their patched numbers and road name from life before the Alaska Railroad. Please bear with me as most of these photos were taken on a new device.

Taken on private property with permission.

6/10/21