Dreadnought Ends of Freight Cars

[MontRailLink]

      I keep seeing references to "dreadnought ends" to various freight cars but can't find any information about why they're called that.  Does anyone know why they're called that--I'd assume that they're named after the company or inventor.

John H.

[Railway Man]

      I keep seeing references to "dreadnought ends" to various freight cars but can't find any information about why they're called that.  Does anyone know why they're called that--I'd assume that they're named after the company or inventor.

John H.

This was a marketing term, presumably borrowed from the naval term dreadnought, to imply these car ends were "as tough as a battleship."  Failed car ends were commonplace in the wood car era -- boxcar loads under severe slack action either punched through the end or simply took the end right off the boxcar.  The Royal Navy's Dreadnought of 1906 revolutionized naval warfare and was the first all-big-gun, steam-turbine propelled battleship and at a stroke rendered all previous battleships superannuated.  Thereafter modern battleships were often called dreadnoughts to differentiate them from the earlier battleships.  The modern battleships of WWII were sometimes referred to as super-dreadnoughts.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dreadnought 

RWM 

[dehusman]

It was a commercial product name for a pressed steel car end design.  There were dozens of different patterns pressed into car ends, roof pieces and side panels (Hutchins, Murphy, Buckeye, etc.)  Dreadnought was a common name for industrial products because it made people think of the battleship or battleships in general.  It has a series of long horizontal ribs pressed into the steel plate, that taper towards the ends, between the tapers are some smaller ribs called "darts".  In design variations some of the darts aren't used (the so called "dartnaught" end) or in later designs the darts extend all the way across the car as a small minor rib (improved dreadnought end or IDE) or there was a more rectangular rib at the top.  Ribbed ends are often described by the number of ribs (5-4 dreadnaught or 1-4-4 IDE, etc).  A 4-4 dreadnaught end car is normally a 10 ft IH type boxcar.  Dreadnaught ends were applied to boxcars, hopper cars and gondolas.

Dave H.