Dan, you are absolutely correct about when 50 cars started their
invasion. But don't forget about earlier 50 ft cars assigned to
furniture service and also many DD cars were used to haul finished cars
with internal racks. Those must have been a real pain to load and
unload! I think there is a Union Pacific book showing little Crosley's
loaded in a boxcar--two aside. Despite Crosley's being very narrow, I
don't know how the last driver got out of the car door.
I grew up on a very light rail'ed branch that pretty much only saw the
40' cars until I went to college in the 70's--many outside braced wooden
cars until the late 60's and always a good grouping of the ribbed sided
boxcars followed after that. Also since most of the traffic was
outbound, most of the cars were home road cars (Milwaukee). So yes, it
was boring growing up on the endless prairie seeing a couple of six axle
Alco's pulling cars through the tall grasses--(so I never really did
grow up... that is)!
Bob Werre
On 8/15/11 9:57 AM, danvandermause wrote:
>
> Lest we be lumped in with our AF brethren, who are often accused of
> purchasing only "colorful" freight cars, let's not forget that even in
> the late steam era, 50 foot boxcars were rapidly dominating the boxcar
> fleet.
> By the late 1950's, not only were 40 foot boxcars rapidly on the way
> out (with the exception of midwestern and Canadian roads with
> significant amounts of light-density grain branchlines, where 40 foot
> boxcars were still being used for grain loading), but new 50 foot
> boxcars were already starting to evolve into 1960's patterns of wider
> doors, plug doors, cushioned underframes, etc.
> The 50 foot Pacific Rail Shops boxcars represent a typical 1950's
> general service boxcar, and should have some representation on our
> layouts. My layout is based on the mid-1960's and by this time the 50
> footers were even more prevalent.
>
> Dan Vandermause
> Ellicott City, MD
>
>
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
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