Confused About 89' Enclosed Autoracks ?

[Kisatchie]

I'm trying to find out when bi-level enclosed autoracks were first introduced. On Mark's (Spookshow's) website, all the enclosed autoracks have built dates starting with 1980 (or later).

However, on the Oddballs Decal site, it shows a KCS enclosed autorack with a built date of 1970.

See: http://mopac1.tripod.com//200.gif

Can anyone help me out?


Hmm... no, no help here...

[Hyperion]

They started appearing in the early-mid 70's.  Though they quickly caught on, it still took a solid 10-15 years for them to replace much of the existing non-covered fleet.  A KCS car in 1970 is stretching what I would think possible, as if it were, it would be one of the very, very first at best.

I would be inclined to think that either Oddball's got it all wrong, or more likely since an autorack and the flat are really seperate entitities, that perhaps the car had a build date of 1970 and the rack was added some time later.  Particularly since his drawing shows the car being Yellow -- which the early enclosed autorack conversions wouldn't have been, they were initially added to brown TTX flats.  He was probably working off an image taken much later, long after the car was repainted and the rack added to it, and the car itself just happened to have a build-date of 1970.

[Kisatchie]

Thank you. That makes a lot of sense.


Hmm... unlike Kiz...

[Frisco Larry]

The Frisco was one of the pioneers in the US for autoracks and they had them in 1960

[Robbman]

Here's a good synopsis from Jim Eager from the MFCL


A quick timeline of enclosed autorack development:

 SP began applying side-screens - literally wire mesh screening - to
 their racks as early as 1967. By 1970 several vendors were marketing
 solid metal and fiberglass side screen panels and by the early '70s
 new racks were being delivered with side panels and older cars were
 being refitted with them.

 As early as 1968 GM was advocating for fully enclosed rack
 structures, as they and SP began development of the Vert-A-Pac
 concept, with the first production cars entering service in 1970.

 Next came GM and SP's development of the Stac-Pac in 1971, with the
 first production cars entering service in 1972.

 In 1973 Ford, Whitehead & Kales and the N&W, DT&I, SCL, L&N and UP
 cooperated to develop the Snap-Pak prototype trilevel with
 overlapping perforated sheet steel sides, N&W 400000.
 At the same time Chrysler and Portec-Paragon develop the prototype
 RailPac car with expanded mesh side panels. Several pre-production
 cars are tested by a number of railroads.
 Meanwhile Greenville built two prototype articulated Autoguard racks
 for Southern (SOU 599000 & 599001), and Santa Fe constructed several
 one-off experimental cars.

 1974 saw the first production W&K Safe-Pak cars (ATSF, CP, CRR, FEC,
 NW, SCL, SSW, UP, WP) and the first production Paragon RailPac cars
 (C&O, BN, C&NW, D&RGW, NW, SLSF, UP, others?).

 In 1975 W&K begins delivering its wide-body trilevel design with
 perforated side panels to UP and GTW (WK1). This design eventually
 evolved into the Walthers Thrall model (WK3).
 Portec also delivered its own competing wide-body trilevel with
 perforated side panels to BN.

 In 1976 Pullman delivered its competing wide-body trilevel with
 perforated side panels to SSW, and later to B&O. Stac-Pacs are
 withdrawn from service at the end of the model year.

 In 1977 W&K and Portec trilevel production rapidly takes off. Both
 also start producing bilevel versions of their wide-body designs, but
 uptake is much slower as they can not cary full-sized vans, so side
 screened bilevel production continued into 1980-81 or so. Thrall and
 PC&F also produced a few fully enclosed trilevels and bilevels. Vert-
 A-Pacs are withdrawn from service at the end of the model year.

 By 1/80 there were already around 7570 fully enclosed trilevels in
 service, plus another 1800+ roofless CTTX cars. (Verses only 1700
 fully enclosed bilevels.) Only six years after the first production
 fully enclosed cars entered service they already accounted for almost
 half of all trilevels.

 Jim Eager

[nkalanaga]

So it would be safe to say that side panels would be rare, and fully-enclosed racks nonexistent, on my mid-1974 Montana Rockies BN?

That seems to fit pictures from the last year of MILW's electrics, mid-73 to mid-74.

[cv_acr]

They probably got the 1970 built date off the flatcar in their reference photo. The flat and rack are separate, and newer racks are mounted on older flatcars. Flatcars that used to have open racks are still in service with fully enclosed racks.

The flatcar could easily be 10-15 years older than the rack.