Announcements have been made about the disposition of some of the items in the Mid Continent Museum's auction last weekend. I understand the Woodward Iron 2-10-0 is going to the Age of Steam Roundhouse in Sugarcreek, Ohio. A handful of ex-AC&Y Mather composite boxcars were offered, but I've only been able to learn about the disposition of one of them, which was evidently bought by a scrapper for about $800. These are among the very last survivors of this notable boxcar type. Does anybody know how the rest of Mid-Continent's Mathers fared in the auction?
Tom
Is there a museum out there, that actually cares about crane derricks? Sad to see several more getting the torch, including a large steamer (150 or 200 tons capacity, as I recall) that was operational there only a few years ago.
At the rate they're buying the farm, and the state they're almost always in for those left, these critical pieces to the history of American railroading are going to become a real rarity relatively soon.
Too bad, since not only are they historically important, but I think they're interesting for most museum visitors. But they seem to be the first candidate to get the torch whenever a museum wants to scrap some of their equipment.
Hopefully somewhere, at least one of these is a prized museum piece, instead of being left to mother nature until the next round of scrappings comes along.
The previous two postings both lament the loss of certain rolling stock from Mid-Continent's collection, which is understandable. What I didn't see was an alternative proposal to preserve this equipment. Apparently, no museum or preservation group, for whatever reason, saw fit to make a high enough bid to acquire these cars.
And the T1 Trust continues to try to raise really big bucks to chase a chimera.
Many years ago when I lived in Chicago, I was a member of the Illinois Railway Museum in Union. I haven't had a connection with them in many years. They had a firm dedication to preserving freight cars, so I was hoping at least one of the Mathers would go there. This would be especially appropriate since Mather was a Chicago company.
Acy, what's the back ground on the Mather's cars?
Kind of a long story, but I'll try to condense it. The Mather Humane Stock Car Co. (I think that was the correct corporate name; could be slightly wrong) was founded by Alonzo Mather and operated out of Chicago. The Mather Building in Chicago reportedly still exists. Around the 1950's or 1960's, the Company was absorbed into North American Car, which continued some of the old Mather leases for a number of years afterwards.
Mather started out building stock cars for lease, but branched out into reefers which were mostly leased to meat companies, and boxcars which were usually leased to the smaller roads. They were economical to operate and repair because their construction was mostly reliant on steel structural shapes that could be easily replicated with readily available standard structural shapes. The reefers had double walls with insulation, but the boxcars were invariably single sheath, with horizontal wooden siding on the sides and ends, with wooden doors.
There were several stages of Mather boxcar development, with AC&Y using at least four major sizes & styles, with a few variations. In addition to AC&Y, other operators of smaller, earlier Mather boxcars included Muncie & Western (the Ball Line), C&EI, C&IM, Pittsburg Shawmut & Northern, Manufacturers, Illinois Northern, Port Huron & Detroit, and maybe some others that don't come immediately to mind.
Mid Continent's cars began to be built just before we got into WWII, and were all delivered to the AC&Y a short time later. There were originally 149 on the AC&Y, numbered 3001-3149, which rode on Andrews trucks. Manufacturers Railway got 25 more of this identical design during the war, also on Andrews trucks, and GM&O got another 25 after the war. In 1954, AC&Y got a group of 25 more, which became numbers 3150-3174. These were dimensionally the same, but had steel doors and ends, and had a revised side bracing pattern and rode on more modern trucks. This group may have been among the very last new outside braced composite boxcars built. Two of the steel-end carbodies were used off trucks as storage sheds at Mid Continent's loco service area as of a few years ago and were not included in the auction. AC&Y reportedly liked the wood-lined cars for shipping brand new tires to Detroit, because the tires were still hot when loaded, and could be damaged by contact with steel surfaces. This is not verified. The cars were not restricted to tire service, and could be seen nationwide in general service.
In the late 1950's, Manufacturers ended their Mather lease and their 25 cars became AC&Y 3175-3199. These were identical to 3001-3149; but none of these 25 was included in the auction. AC&Y's 3001-3199 were the tallest Mather boxcars ever built, with an inside height of 10'3".
Also in the late 1950's, one car of this type appeared on the roster of the Trona Railroad, but little is known of this car.
The 25 GM&O cars were all retired around the early 1960's.
AC&Y's 3001-3199 continued under the old lease when Mather was absorbed by North American, with gradual retirements over the years. A few were still in mainline service in 1971, lasting long enough to be in trains pulled by SD45's, in spite of their Andrews trucks. I don't know about the legality of that.
I don't know how Mid Continent came to own these cars, except that North American had a facility at Baraboo, which is pretty close. I suspect they went there for disposition, with MCAX reporting marks but retaining their AC&Y numbers, and were somehow obtained by the Museum. Aside from the Mid Continent's cars, only one other example of this type is known to have been preserved, and that is at Campo, CA. Parts of some of the earlier, smaller Mather designs may exist in derelict condition or as parts of buildings. None of these is known to be complete, and I know of no rebuilding/restoration plan for them. I know of no preserved Mather reefers or stockcars, but would be happy to be proved wrong on that score.
A lot of this is from memory, so could be slightly incorrect, but the basics are correct. We did a lot of this research as part of an AC&Y Historical Society project, but the info isn't fresh in my mind.
(edited May 7)
Sounds, interesting, for sure. The ac&y was a neat little road with a nice variety of first generation diesel's. Rode on the ac&y, on my first steam excursion behind the 2102. I remember we rode across an awesome bridge, many a pictures of the big nnorthern was taken their that Sunday afternoon.
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