"The American Railroad Freeight Car" is available from Amazon:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0801852366/sr=1-1/qid=1139010551/ref=sr_1_1/104-6659351-2075940?%5Fencoding=UTF8
I have it in front of me, and in the chapter on "Cars for General
Merchandise, 1870 to 1899" there is a section called "The Debate Over
Size." Judging from this, in the 1870's a common length was 28 feet
for a 20 ton capacity car. By the end of the century, the common
length was 35 or 36 feet for a 30 ton car. It also has drawings for a
50 ton car with a truss rod frame, 40 feet long, built by Canda. The
Southern Pacific bought 2000 of these 40 foot cars in 1899.
-Michael Eldridge
-San Jose
Yahoo! Groups Links
<*> To visit your group on the web, go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/S-Scale/
<*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
<*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to:
http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
