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Hank’s Truck and Electric (HTEX) is a lesser-known Stephens Railcar Subsidiary that operates the reclamation/ scrap yard/ used and refurbished parts inside the Stephens Railcar Services company. HTEX started out as the contractor operating the reclamation yard inside the Stephens Railcar John Tyler Locomotive Shops (JTLS). While the primary business there was stripping locomotive cores for eventual use in various repair and rebuild projects at JTLS, revenue was augmented with final disposition dismantling of damaged and obsolescent railroad equipment. Anything salvageable from reclamation operations was inventoried and held for re-sale as spare parts. Due to the proximity of the HTEX yard near the Stephens Railcar Services Division, the company began working with derailment response teams and construction gangs to oversee final clean up and scrap collection. This prompted a large expansion of the JTLS reclamation yard into a standalone company closely tied with Stephens Raikar.
In 2024, HTEX inked a contract with Georgia Road and Warrior Met coal to build and operate a coal car repair and maintenance facility in Brookwood, Alabama. The shop would be responsible for several trainsets of unit coal cars operated by both Warrior Met Coal (JWRX) and Georgia Road Transportation (GARD). To ease moving scrap cars around the Brookwood repair shop. A large 70T Trackmobile was purchased to switch the new repair facility given the designation TM-1. Shifting long cuts of unit coal cars in and out of storage for repair or use proved a challenge for the diminutive motor. As a result, HTEX acquired its first locomotive switchers to facilitate the movement of cars inside the facility.
Locomotive DL-2 was a CF-7 purchased at scrap value from shortline Alabama Central RR (ACRR) out of Prattville, AL in 2019 as part of a string of damaged and surplus equipment. languishing on the ACRR. The former ACRR CF-7 #404 was one of the pieces acquired with the intent of final disposition scrapping. For whatever reason, the unit sat behind the fence at JTLS out of view for several years resulting in the formation of an urban legend of sorts recounted by local railfans. The story goes that the ACRR #404 was part of a group of CF-7 locomotives acquired by the ACRR when it began operations in the late 1980s. The early ACRR was somewhat of an obscure and hard to document operation due to its proximity to several military and state reservations around Montgomery with power running as needed and kept under lock and key inside the Kershaw Manufacturing complex at the eastern-most end of the ACRR Mongomery Division. Few if any photos existed of the early days of the railroad, and none of the 404. As fate would have it, 404 suffered a major failure early on and remained squirreled away for a parts source. ACRR would add its Prattville line in the 1990s and upgrade power, sealing the fate of 404 as a parts source behind closed doors away from prying eyes. The reclusive ACRR management rarely acknowledged the railfan community and never posted an official public locomotive and equipment roster. The fact that it regularly sold and traded power as financials rose and fell, made railfan documentation even harder. The ACRR 404 was listed on the active roster but lacked any photographic evidence it existed on the railroad. The irony that turned legend was its number, the 404. In computer circles of the time the number “404” was associated with a severe data crash and lost. Every computer operator and gamer in the 1880s feared the “blue screen of death” which declared ” Error 404, directory not found”. In ACRR railfan circles, the debate rolled on as CF-7 #404 was reported, but never found.
After spending years as a secluded parts donor for the ACRR, the unit was moved to a nearby HTEX scrap yard in Montgomery where it sat in the overgrowth at the end of the yard loading spur. It remained there long after the other surplus equipment moved with it from the ACRR disappeared at the scrapper’s torch. Rumor had it that scrap yard personnel converted the cab to a makeshift break room, complete with running water and toilet in the nose. With the advent of the Brookwood coal car Repair shop, the need for something more powerful that the initially assigned Trackmobile TM-1 gave the unit its third life. Using on-hand inventory from its stock of salvaged and remanufactured parts, HTEX minimally restored 404 to service, patched out fading ACRR logos (renumbered it DL-2 behind the Trackmobile TM-1.) and assigned it to the Brookwood repair shop as a car shifter. TM-1 was retained to move cars around in the two bay shop.
Georgia Road Transportation 