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PHNX caboose

By Angela Cotey | August 1, 2018

| Last updated on November 3, 2020


Ask Trains from the June 2012 issue

PHNX102caboose
This bright red caboose and its sister, No. 101, escort special rail loads and are owned by PHN LLC.
Timothy J. O’Malley
Q Last year I saw a caboose on the tail end of a BNSF Railway train with PHNX reporting marks. Is it escorting the three hopper cars in front of it? Who owns it, and what does PHNX stand for? – Timothy J. O’Malley, Phoenix

A Two cabooses, Nos. 101 and 102, carry that reporting mark, and they are currently owned by Houston-based Specialized Rail Transport. The reporting marks, however, refer to PHN LLC, one of several Midwestern companies that make up Lake Superior Services.

Lake Superior Warehousing Co. Inc., another of these companies, acquired the cars in approximately 2002 (one from the former BC Rail and one from the former Duluth, Missabe & Iron Range Railway) and completely rebuilt them to accompany specialized rail car loads from the Port of Duluth to destinations principally in Alberta, Canada.

They often traveled with rail car CEBX 800, a 36-axle rail car and still the largest rail car in North America, but have escorted many other shipments. In 2009, Lake Superior Services sold them to Specialized Rail Transport. – Jonathan Lamb, vice president and general manager, Lake Superior Warehousing Co. Inc.

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