In railroad parlance " fallen flags " means railroads that once flourished and are now no longer in existence. Such is the plight of this old beat up gondola here at the yard awaiting orders. The reporting marks at present are BKTY,121487,more than likely from one of several mergers. But the true pedigree of this car starts with the long since fallen, MTK Lines, Missouri, Kansas & Texas RR. You can see the MKT very faded logo in the middle of the car. But its what some wag went and did with a can of white spray paint scrawling across the entire car : TEXAS & PACIFIC RR 1869 1969 NEW ORLEANS SUB. Me thinks that who did this was a dyed in the wool T & P enthusiast who perhaps at every turn took it upon himself to let the world know that the TEXAS & PACIFIC RR. lived on in this vain glorious attempt to keep the name alive. Rail fans some of them tend to be that way, holding to the death almost their favorite road name. The fate of the gondola in the pic, well before its life would end it more than likely would go through a few more mergers and buy outs before ending up in the wreckers yard and falling before the torch man only to be loaded onto another gondola and hauled off the the furnaces of some distant steel mill....thanks for the peek