PC: Stolen PC Box Car Story

[Gene.Fusco@xxxxxxxxxxx]

Just today on the r.m.rr newsgroup, I found the following explanation of an
interesting scandal involving the Penn Central railroad.  The following
account of the scandal is reprinted here with permission from it's author,
Rich Weyand.  Rich says that this is his best recollection of the event,
and that some of the PC list members may know more.

> > [Previous post asking about history behind a Kadee LaSalle & Bureau
> >  County box car deleted  -gtf]
>
> LaSalle lies toward the west end of LaSalle County, toward the border
> with Bureau County.  The Illinois Central N-S main crosses the Illinois
> River at the east end of town.  The Rock Island E-W main cuts across
> the south end of town along the Illinois River.  The Penn Central
> (ex-NYC, I think) had a branch roughly E-W north of town, now abandoned.  
> And the Burlington main line runs through Mendota, about 10 miles north, 
> angling SW toward Princeton, about 15 miles west, in Bureau County, on
> its way to Galesburg.
> 
> The L&BC has about a 20 mile long main line that runs from the IC north 
> then west.  It splits up near Dalzell, one line running south to the 
> Rock, and one northwest to the Burlington, hitting it about halfway 
> between Mendota and Princeton.  So it's a little interchange railroad,
> with a few trackside industries.  I believe there was a 'model this
> shortline' article in MR or one of the other mags several years ago, so
> you might want to check the magazine article index on Accurail.
> 
> Sometime around the late 60's/early 70's, when the PC was on the ropes 
> and Conrail was still in the future, an enterprising L&BC decided that 
> empty PC cars in interchange would not be missed if occasionally one of 
> them simply got lost.  So the L&BC would occasionally repaint one in its 
> own colors and put it into service as their own!  They got caught with
> 40 stolen PC boxcars, with a couple in the process of being repainted, 
> as I recall.
> 
> I saw these cars when I was in high school.  The PC logo was quite 
> visible under the L&BC paint job, rather like a modeler's poorly 
> re-painted rolling stock.  Then again, the PC was spinning off assets
> like excess rolling stock as they imploded, and LS&BC equipment was all
> scrap/salvage/spin-off anyway, so nobody thought anything of it until 
> the scandal erupted.