Railgon and Railbox (gondolas and box cars, respectively) were established as subsidiaries of Trailer Train Company (later TTX Company)--Railgon toward the end of the 1970s and Railbox in about 1974. Eventually, both were folded into the parent company--Railbox first, then Railgon. All of the reporting marks for the various box cars and gondolas are now assigned to the TTX Company. Both GONX (Railgon Company) and GNTX (TTX Company) are frequent, not to mention some of the more distinctive, "Other Roadnames" passing through Whittier. -- Mark Earnest

The unidentified gondola in the 3 new shots submitted by Mark Earnest is a RailGon car. These are owned by Trailer Train Corporation (now called TTX), and are similar to RBOX boxcars. They were are foray into a fleet of generic boxcars and gondolas that could move as a free running pool on any railroad. I think both the RBOX and GONX car pools were set up in the 1980's. Many of the GONX cars were sold (such as the DRGW marked car in the third photo), but apparently TTX still maintains a fleet of RailGons. I don't think the RailGon concept was as successful as the Railbox cars as many of the Railboxes have been rebuilt and new cars added with additional marks such as TBOX. I don't think any gons have been rebuilt or new cars added to the fleet since its inception, and many cars were sold off. Many of the original generic RBOX cars have also been sold off and carry railroad marks now. -- Jason Kuehn

 

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