Talked to a friend I worked with on a shortline in North Dakota. He said they had the worst winter that anyone living could remember, and it has been raining all spring and now into summer. The line keeps washing out (minor), and the track is too soft to run most trains. It looks like most farmers were unable to get anything planted, so when it dries out there will be some storage grain to move (though some farmer's storage bins also flooded.)

I heard that UPRR has recalled all the centerbeams stored on the Wallow-Union in Oregon. There had been 1900+ cars (mostly TTZX) stored for 25 miles. Not sure if the recalled cars are due to increased lumber traffic, or enough older/smaller cars have been scrapped to create the demand.

Schnitzer Steel in Portland is scrapping TTX spine cars - salvaging useable trucks, brake valves and hand brakes to go back to TTX. Amazing how fast the intermodal market changed, so much for using a car for 40-50 years! I wonder how many 70 ton boxcars are being scrapped?