URR Hopper, ex Conrail

[URR566]

On Saturday I was watching 66 Crew leave Clairton and I saw this car in the train. it’s a former Conrail H2 class hopper, now URR 2694. I had no idea that the Union was purchasing used cars for coke service, I guess they have a shortage of coke racks?

I noticed back in December, a coke train which had two of these ex H2 hoppers that were lettered “ETBF 1” and “ETBF 2”. I never asked anyone about them as I forgot until this weekend. At the time I assume those two cars were owned by US Steel and that ETBF stands for Edgar Thomson Blast Furnaces, or something like that? I guess those two cars have since been relettered for the URR and numbered URR 2694 and 2695 (photographed the 2695 on Sunday)? Their number series follows the old 2000 series coke racks which are numbered 2000-2693. I guess they’re short on cars so they have these two to fill the void created by the retirement of the “Old Racks”? Regardless of what they are and why they’re here, its something different that nobody seems to have noticed so I figured I’d share these two pictures.

[bessemerbob]

Very interesting and rare find!

[trainmanble]

wonder how old these cars are, maybe just bridging the gap until new cars arrive?

[URR566]

That’s what I was thinking, they’re probably short on cars. I’d really like to know what there Conrail numbers were, the URR has at least two of them. The Conrail H2 class was built at their Hollidaysburg Car Shops:

thecrhs.org/content/class-h2

Heres a promotional video Conrails mechanical department made in 1994, starting at 3:45 they show these cars being built:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=i0pSWMYy0hI

[URR566]

So I have since learned the story of how these two former Conrail hoppers ended up on the Union. US Steel bought them for their own in plant use at ET. They were going to replace the "BK" hoppers (ex-B&LE HT47 rebuilds) with these. They numbered them as "ETBF 1" and "ETBF 2". Unfortunately they didn't fit the clearances so they were rendered useless and sat at ET for a bit. Since they were in good shape and still had a few years left in them it was decided to move them over to the URR for coke service. I'm still working on determining their CR numbers, I hear there may be someone with the answer and I hope to have it within the next few months (if I'm lucky).