Fishbelly boxcars

[Anonymous]

When did wood boxcars with metal fishbelly underframes first come into common usage?

[leighant]

Are you talking about fishbelly CENTER SILLS down the center line of the car or fishbelly SIDE SILLS at the outer edge?

The best known steel fishbelly center sill cars would probably be the USRA single-sheath and double-sheathed boxcars, designed by a government authority when the railroads came under governnment control during World War I. These were steel underframe and steel FRAME cars (ie steel outside braced for the single-sheath) with wood bodies. Designed during the war, they didn't come out in large numbers until the war was over. Thousands of the cars appeared on dozens of railroads. ATLAS announced in June they will be producing an N-scale model of a USRA 40' boxcar as rebuilt during the 1930s to steel side. Look on the www.atlas.com site for a picture of the model. I ordered a couple for my 1950s layout. The rebuilds kept the fishbelly center sills. "Built like a battleship."

Santa Fe had a class of several thousand 37' long BX-O boxcars with steel fishbelly underframes that came out to the side sills. They looked somewhat like a double sheathed boxcar built on top of a fishbelly flatcar. They were built in 1906. They were found to be OVERBUILT- underframe TOO STRONG- and they lasted forever, no matter how beaten up the wood body looked. I have a note that there is a photo of one still in use in maintenance of war service in 1970.

[rrinker]

They were used in revenue service well into the 70's, as a picture in one of my books shows. The WA&G had a large fleet of these that operated right to the end - my father in law recalls seeing them come through on PC trains when he worked in the yard at Thorndale. These are just like the Accurail kits.

--Randy

[orsonroy]

QUOTE: Originally posted by leighant
The best known steel fishbelly center sill cars would probably be the USRA single-sheath and double-sheathed boxcars, designed by a government authority when the railroads came under governnment control during World War I. These were steel underframe and steel FRAME cars (ie steel outside braced for the single-sheath) with wood bodies.

You're mixing up the two USRA boxcars here.

The double sheathed box had steel ends, roof and fishbelly underframe, but wholly wood sides.

The single sheathed box had steel ends, roof and a straight sill underframe, and steel bracing for the single (inside) wood sheathing.

The USRA also designed an all-steel boxcar, but didn't build any. After the war, the NYC took the design, simplified the ends, and built well over 25,000 of them. That car had a straight sill underframe too. The NYC designed a similar car before the war that was virtually identical, but which did have a fishbelly underframe. The NYC also rebuilt several thousand of their double sheathed, fishbelly underframe boxcars (also built before WWI) and resheathed them with steel sides.