MCTR 728

Earlier this week, Greg McComas stopped by for a visit. He was in town for business and had some extra time, so we got together for some photo ops. More to come on that later.

Greg is the creator of the Michigan Interstate St. Clair subdivision and you can find his blog here: https://michiganinterstatemodelrr.blogspot.com/. More recently, he has been posting updates to Facebook on the Michigan Interstate St. Clair Subdivision page. He has done a wonderful job of creating the backstory for his railroad and he is quite an accomplished modeler. As we both are followers of the proto-freelanced movement, we have been trading information and discussing possible run through connections for some time now. The fact that Greg models today's railroading environment has given us both the opportunity to model the other's railroad in a different timeframe. And I have mentioned in the past that there would be a MCIS car on the railroad some day.

Well, that day has finally come. Greg brought MCTR 728 to the CWE to be included in grain service. The Michigan Interstate was formed in 1976 when the Penn Central divested a number of branch lines in Michigan as part of the formation of Conrail. MCTR 728 was number 28 of 250 covered hopper cars that were transferred from Penn Central to the Michigan Interstate.

As you would expect from Greg, the car has a detailed history. Here's the summary from his FB page:

Project Seventy Sixer wrapping up.

MCTR 728 (PS 4750)
- Car built by Pullman Standard for NYC in 68’
- Car kept original NYC marks into PC era
- 28th of 250 various NYC, PC, and PCB marked LO hoppers (MCTR 700-950) that came with PC line sale of fictional subsidiary St. Clair Western
- Remarked MCTR denoting Lakes Interstate Transportation Group (Parent company of Michigan Interstate Railway which becomes Michigan Interstate Railroad in 1985).

You can even see where on the car the foreman marked in grease pencil “28 of 250”

Greg did a beautiful job on the weathering and the patch job just looks great. Here's one last look as the car travels east at Summit Springs on GE-8 headed for Hunter's Bay, VA.

Thanks again for the nice gift, Greg- it was very kind of you.