When did the first prototype composite freight cars hit the rails? Thank you for any help you may offer. Merry Christmas.
Are we talking war emergency composite cars? If so then somewhere mid to late 42.
Shane
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
Some USRA cars were composite (steel frame, with wood used as non-structural siding). Orders were submitted May 1, 1918. The gondola and the single-sheathed box car are examples. There were lots of them built.
As far as the very FIRST, that's a lot tougher. I look forward to the correct answer.
Ed
Banjobenne1,
Steel and wood construction began to appear in freight cars in the first decade of the twentieth century. At first, it was mainly the underframes. In the 1920s, steel side bracing on boxcars became prevalent, mainly on single sheathed cars. Reefers, which were mainly double sheathed, remained steel underframed while gondolas and hoppers became mostly all steel because of the abuse they took.
As locomotives became more powerful, and trains longer and heavier due to greater load weights, all steel construction gained wider use in boxcars. The better insulating properties of wood still dominated in refrigerator cars. The reservation of steel for military use during World War II, brought on the return of wood-steel construction in gondolas and hoppers. Most had their wood components replaced by steel, once war-time restrictions on the use of steel were lifted. Reefers were still built with steel underframes right up until the beginning of the war. Quite a few lasted until the last ice-cooled cars were retired in the mid 1970s. On those roads that had significant forest products traffic, single and double sheathed wood bodied boxcars lasted equally as long.
Steel construction of flatcars began early on as well, due to the service they were in, while wood slatted stockcars continued right up until most of them began to disappear in the late 1950s, early 1960s. Vinegar tank cars consisting of wood tanks on steel underframes also lasted into the late '60s/early 70s. By the 1980s, the age of the composite car was over, most having been burned to salvage their metal parts.
banjobenne1When did the first prototype composite freight cars hit the rails?
My guess is that it would have been shortly after the invention of the steam locomotive.
Wooden cars held together with wood likely wouldn't last long, and if they could build the locomotive using iron, it wouldn't take long for carbuilders to begin using iron, too, whether it be simply iron fasteners, or iron shapes, such as angles and channel stock.I don't think that it would have been too long after that, that the iron parts would've been rendered in steel.
One of the reasons that I chose to model the late '30s was the ability to run composite cars with all-steel cars, and I have plenty of both.
Wayne
I doubt there has ever been an all-wood freight car pulled by a steam locomotive on railroad tracks.
The OP might correct me, but I think he's interested in freight cars where the structural elements are essentially all steel, but the siding/sheathing is wood.
Alternately, he's asking after a much more recent type, perhaps some sort of plastic/steel car like the ACF Glasshopper (1983, I think).
Dating the composite car back a little further, I thumbed through Edward S. Kaminski's "American Car & Foundry Company, 1899-1999" and found a number of such cars built in 1913.
For cars with an iron or steel underframe and wood structure, late 1880's, 1890's. That construction style lasted until the 1930's when all steel took over, then composite resumed from 1941-1944 during WW2. Then all steel pretty much after that (except for some plastic composite cars.)
Dave H. Painted side goes up. My website : wnbranch.com
Although freight cars would have had iron or steel parts pretty far back, "composite" cars generally mean cars where a main structural part of the car were steel, while the rest was wood - like a car with steel roof and ends, but wood sides.
With all-wood cars, builders used adjustable trussrods under the car to strengthen the underframe. These tended to be phased out in new construction as steel underframes came into use, but some cars did have both.
Since most of the stress on a car is along the length of the car, roofs and ends were the next parts of the car to be made of steel. Cars built with steel roof and ends but wood sides were common into the 1920s. As noted earlier, steel framing was added to car sides, either double sheathed (wood on both sides) or single sheathed (where the wood was on the inside of the car, so the outside bracing was visible.)
The 10'-6" high, 40' long all-steel boxcar many of us think of when someone says "boxcar" was developed in the mid-1930s. (Before that, most boxcars and reefers were around 8'-6" to 9' high.) As noted, during the Second World War, boxcars, hoppers and gondolas began being built with wood sides again as a way to save steel for the war effort. Many of these cars were rebuilt later with steel sides added.
wjstixThe 10'-6" high, 40' long all-steel boxcar many of us think of when someone says "boxcar" was developed in the mid-1930s. (Before that, most boxcars and reefers were around 8'-6" to 9' high.)
Boxcars of that era were 10'0". I don't think the widespread move to 10'6" really happened until the forties.
Chris van der Heide
My Algoma Central Railway Modeling Blog
I think you're right Chris, although there were a few roads that had some taller cars in the mid-to-late '30s.I have a photo of a 40' Espee automobile car with a 10'4" IH (BLT 11-36), and a GTW 50' automobile car with the same 10'4" IH (BLT. 11-37).
I'm a longtime fan of Train Miniature's early low-height house cars, which fit well into my late '30s-era layout - they include single- and double-sheathed versions and some decent renditions of the early all-steel cars, too.
General service boxcars (XM) began to get progressively taller beginning in 1932, with the American Railroad Association (ARA) 9' 4", inside height, 40 foot, steel boxcar. In 1937, the inside height increased to 10'0" in the Association of American Railroads new standard boxcar. Finally, in 1944, the AAR Improved boxcar with an inside height of 10'6", which remained the standard height for a Plate B boxcar that was able to negotiate the clearances on 99% of North America's rails, up until the advent of today's "excess height" boxcars. Of note, the wide acceptance of the new, taller cars is an off-shoot of increasing clearances to accommodate double stacks.
Cars with non-standard heights that pre-dated the adoption of the 1932 standard include cars in automobile service, some rather tall and unique 50 footers from about 1917, marked for a company identifying itself as Menasha Wooden Ware of I believe, Menasha WI. Cars of lower height included the ubiquitous Pennsy X-29, its predecessors, and clones. Although these were the widely accepted standards, car heights were a direct consequece of a railroad's clearances. Older eastern roads plagued with low clearances continued to order 10' 0" cars up into the 1950s or, the issues were resolved.
Atlas offers the 1932 ARA in HO. The 1937 is offered by Intermountain and although not acknowledged as such, has been THE plastic 40 foot boxcar in HO, since Irv Athearn cranked out the first one, way back in the 1950s. The 1944 improved standard is produced in HO by Intermountain, and as a Branchline model, by Atlas.