Anybody tell me what the car is behind the single sheath boxcar in this photo?
Thanks
http://ctr.trains.com/photo-of-the-day/2020/02/story-city-service
Looks like a composite gon. Steel frame, wood sides. It looks a little too low to be a hopper to me.
--Randy
Modeling the Reading Railroad in the 1950's
Visit my web site at www.readingeastpenn.com for construction updates, DCC Info, and more.
I second it being a war emergency composite gon. Possibly a war version of the B&O battleship coal gon?
A pessimist sees a dark tunnel
An optimist sees the light at the end of the tunnel
A realist sees a frieght train
An engineer sees three idiots standing on the tracks stairing blankly in space
Definitely a wood-sided, steel framed/braced gondola.
Chris van der Heide
My Algoma Central Railway Modeling Blog
How about one of these, an L&N composite gon:
Dave H. Painted side goes up. My website : wnbranch.com
dehusmanHow about one of these, an L&N composite gon:...
Nicely done, Dave. Those look similar to the Intermountain cars, of which I have a few...
I also picked up a few of the Walthers/Proto version, too, and at very reasonable prices...
Wayne
Dr Wayne, biggest difference is that on both your cars and the cars I found, the angle of the diagonals appears to be reversed from the original picture.
My guess is it would be from the 1910 era. I don't believe they had started making War Emergency cars yet in 1942 (the year the photo was taken)?
Its also a 9 panel car, blank center, 3 diagonals on either side and blank end panel.
dehusman....the angle of the diagonals appears to be reversed from the original picture.
The one in the original photo looks the same as bottom one of yours and both of mine, except for the lack of angle bracing on the end panels of the real one. Your upper car is a pretty good match, except for the double grabs on the left end.
It's difficult to tell from the real photo, even when enlarged, but it seems to have only one grabiron on the far end of the car. That supports Stix opinion of it being an older car, as are mine meant to represent. The requirement for the second grabiron dates from the mid-to-latter part of the '30s, and it would be unreasonable to think that all cars would have received that upgrade by 1942.
As for angled bracing, there were, for some time, varying views on the merits of the Howe truss versus the Pratt truss, and single-sheathed cars of the time displayed both versions, depending on the preference of each road's mechanical department.
The thing I noticed is that the height of the gon is over half the height of the house car behind it - this was a pretty high capacity car.
The end panels do look plain in the photo but the 1931 Car Builder's Cyc/Trainshed Cyclopedia 46 shows some gons of this general style where the diagonal angled bracing on the outside panels was simply thin flat steel, not angled or pressed. The photo doesn't seem to show anything in those outer panels but is not quite clear enough to rule that out.
Dave Nelson
I would be inclined to think it is a wood chip car.
They are basically high sided gons, often built by extending gons with add on panels, but a fair number have also been purpose built.
https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn%3AANd9GcQoJHNjXIhzXYtLU0maX6qXHeB68eduDFaX5RFPHR_ItrszNZuH
Sheldon
Important to remember that before about 1936, standard height for boxcars, reefers, and stock cars was 8'-6", not 10'-6" as would later become standard. I'm pretty sure the outside-braced boxcar behind the locomotive is a 1910-30 era car, so is only 8'-6" high. The gondola might be a bit higher than some other gondolas of the time, but not all that much...certainly not as high as a wood chip gondola, which would be as high as a full-height boxcar (and which I don't think became "a thing" until much later?).
ATLANTIC CENTRAL I would be inclined to think it is a wood chip car. They are basically high sided gons, often built by extending gons with add on panels, but a fair number have also been purpose built.
No, it's definitely a standard sized gondola.
cv_acr ATLANTIC CENTRAL I would be inclined to think it is a wood chip car. They are basically high sided gons, often built by extending gons with add on panels, but a fair number have also been purpose built. No, it's definitely a standard sized gondola.
Ok, if you say so........
Look how tall Wayne's seem next to the box car - in the original prototype picture from the OP, it's just under half the height of the single sheathed car ahead of it, but more like 3/4 the height of the much smaller box car behind it. Some of those earlier cars were less than 9' tall.
Notice that the bottom of the gon, the bottom of the 1st boxcar and the bottom of the tender are all within a few inches of each other. Hold a ruler along the top edge of the gon side, you will see that it is only about half as tall as the tender side.
rrinker Look how tall Wayne's seem next to the box car - in the original prototype picture from the OP, it's just under half the height of the single sheathed car ahead of it, but more like 3/4 the height of the much smaller box car behind it. Some of those earlier cars were less than 9' tall. --Randy
I'm not saying it is or is not anything, but in any case it is deeper than the "typical" gondola.
That suggests to me some purpose built car.
Assuming the Intermountain is an accurate model - it is deeper than a typical "mill gon" but not all gons are mill gons. We're too East Coast oriented, with hoppers for coal since the early days, but in the midwest and west, gons for coal were common. We're used to long, low mill gons from all the steel plants around here.
For example, best I could do on short notice, I found a site with PRR car rosters and dimensional data. The G22 class gons from 1915-16, all steel, stood 6'4" to the top of the sides. The G24 USRA based composite gon of 1919 stood 8' 3" to the top. The classic X29 box car was only 13'3" to the top of the roof centerline. The earlier X23 single sheathed car was a foot shorter. So an 8'3" gon next to a 12'3" box car - would look like it was really tall.
Many of the photos I've studied of the early ore and coal wharf areas show cars of this type, which predate the "self-clearing" type hopper cars.
DH_32ft_hopper by Edmund, on Flickr
Composite by Edmund, on Flickr
These had to be shoveled out through drop-bottom gates. Shown here are all-wood cars but you can see the method of dumping the cars.
https://www.shorpy.com/node/11203?size=_original#caption
Regards, Ed
Its not the D&H car either, its a gon with maybe a 1 board higher side (five boards instead of 4), just like the pictures Dr. Wayne and I posted earlier. Its got the same number of grabirons on the sides that the cars that Dr Wayne and I posted pictures of. Its not an unusually high side.