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Besides the speculation of where freight cars might evolve to is the study of where they have evolved from.  One of the most profoundly informative interesting books on that subject is The American Railroad Freight Car by John H. White Jr.  It is limited to the wood car era up to the beginning of the steel car ear.  What is amazing is the large variety of cars that were developed, including cars specialized for commodities that are no longer hauled by rail.  Also striking is the amount of intense mechanical engineering and clever inventions being created in what might seem, from today's perspective, to have been a very primitive time of railroading.  Mr. White's discussion of swing motion trucks with its school of advocates versus the anti-swing motion school is fascinating with its long list of pros and cons of the two designs.  Also interesting is his description of yard switching technique based on the use of an engine pushing a pole car on a track with a track of cars standing on each side.  The pole car picks off cars from the end of each standing cut and pole-kicks them into various tracks.  The advantage in picking the cars off the end of the cut was that you did not need to accelerate and brake the entire cut for each kick.  The Pennsy used this system.
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