What Kind of Flat?

[Dough]

This was in the middle of a CSX MW train a few months ago. I tried to enlarge the picture as much as I could through the scanner without distorting it. I used to always see a similar type car included in model train sets, but this is the first that I have actually seen. So could anybody help me find details on what kind of flat and maybe a ballpark estimate as to when the car was built?



Thanks!

[Philcal]

Looks like a pretty old 40 ft flat. It's a rarity if I'm correct. I assume that Stack Train is rolling on an adjacent track. Back to your flat car. Can't see the trucks all that clearly,but will assume they're roller bearing,as friction bearing trucks are banned from interchange service.

[Philcal]

Dough,regarding when your car was built,I will guess,and that's all it is,a guess,that it was built in the 40's or 50's.

[CShaveRR]

Your original photo might help here...is it a green C&O flat? If it's a 40-footer, it could be as old as the late 1920s! C&O had a lot of non-revenue flat cars that began life in 1929 as Hocking Valley cars. They were of an unusual length, about 42 feet. The only other 40-foot C&O flat cars I'm aware of were some Pere Marquette cars built in 1930. The car in your picture has twelve stake pockets; so did these ex-PM and ex-HV cars.

As non-revenue cars, they wouldn't have an age limit (since they wouldn't be used in interchange service anyway). They might have been retrofitted with roller-bearing trucks, though, since CSX was one of the first railroads to severely restrict cars without them.