The Boxcar That Shouldn't Be: Midnight Move on Track Nine

The Boxcar That Shouldn't Be: Midnight Move on Track Nine

A full-size boxcar sat centered on Track Nine - a track officially decommissioned ten years earlier, its switch welded shut since 2002, its rails thick with rust - and there were no footprints, no locomotive, no crew. Why did a car legally owned and stored elsewhere appear on a dead track overnight with the welded switch still intact?

In this episode, we tell the sequence of events that began when utility worker Jean Sharp discovered the green boxcar at 6:42 AM on Thursday, September 4, 2011, and the chain of calls and inspections that followed. What moved CBRX 1140 onto a track that should have been physically inaccessible?

Person: Jean Sharp
Date: September 4, 2011
Location: Harwick freight yard, Track Nine
Case: CBRX 1140 midnight relocation
Status: Welding on ladder-end switch found intact

- Jean Sharp discovered the boxcar at 6:42 AM after signing in at the unmanned gate kiosk at 6:40 AM.
- The boxcar was centered on Track Nine, which had been out of service for ten years and dead-ended at a fixed bumper.
- Raymond Gardner identified the photographed car as CBRX 1140 and had paid $40/month to store it under a tarp at Alan Pfeiffer’s yard.
- CBRX 1140 was purchased by scrap broker Alan Pfeiffer at a 2008 Surface Transportation Board auction for $4,200.
- A carbon-copy receipt later showed CBRX 1140 sold for $800 cash to someone listed as R. Gardner in 2009.

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