Modelling Boxcars of the early '70s

[garethashenden]

I find this a very interesting era, a nice mixture of old and new rolling stock. Lots of 40' steel boxcars, but some newer longer cars. But I have some questions.

ACI plates were introduced in 1967 and required by 1970 for interchange cars, so for my 1971 date everything needs them aside from a few cars in captive service. They seem to be placed wherever there was an empty space, although mostly to the right side of the car.

Roofwalks: Not on new cars after 1966, to be removed by 1974 but this deadline was later extended to 1979. So what percentage of cars would still have them?
What I'm thinking is that I'll remove them from all the Trainman cars, since they're quite chunky, and leave the finer etched or thin plastic roofwalks on other cars. That would be about a third of the fleet, does that sound right? I suppose the other option would be to go by the car service date. I'd guess that anything serviced before '66 would still have the roofwalk, but would a car serviced in say '68 have had them removed? Of course the real solution is to find pictures of the cars I'm modelling, but that's easier said than done. I've found a few, but not a lot.

Does anyone have any advice on how to approach this?

[thomasjmdavis]

Your best resource will probably be photographs.  Individual railroads approached these things differently- dependent on overall company policy, financial condition, size of the road and freight car fleet.  But even there, sometimes you get two railroads, say, in tough economic shape, taking almost opposite actions.  One limits maintenance on older equipment, so that all their older cars might still have roofwalks- saves on labor.  The second railroad figures that completely rebuilding older cars will give them a fleet good for another 20 years without buying anything new- so none of their older cars will have roofwalks.

If you model a particular prototype road, try to find out what they actually did- diagram books can be a big help here, as they may show you the dates that particular classes of car were shopped- or list which series of cars, for instance, still needed roofwalks removed as of the date of the diagram.

And don't forget scotchlite being applied on older equipment.  Again, railroad specific.

[coosvalley]

There is a wealth of info in this video,and  a shameless plug for my own upload too . It is not the greatest quality, but it shows the common car types and you can see roofwalks slowly fade out of the picture too. The video starts in the 60s and ends in the late 70s, everything until you see the GP38-2s is leading up to 1974. I think most of it was shot in Mass, but I'm not totally sure, I didn't shoot it, I just rescued it from VHS.

[jagged ben]

...
Roofwalks: Not on new cars after 1966, to be removed by 1974 but this deadline was later extended to 1979. So what percentage of cars would still have them?
What I'm thinking is that I'll remove them from all the Trainman cars, since they're quite chunky, and leave the finer etched or thin plastic roofwalks on other cars. That would be about a third of the fleet, does that sound right? I suppose the other option would be to go by the car service date. I'd guess that anything serviced before '66 would still have the roofwalk, but would a car serviced in say '68 have had them removed? Of course the real solution is to find pictures of the cars I'm modelling, but that's easier said than done. I've found a few, but not a lot.

Does anyone have any advice on how to approach this?

I think you've described a great approach, aka making your models look good.

[nkalanaga]

Some roads were aggressive about removing roofwalks, others not so much.  The "service" date on cars is actually the last time it was reweighed, and doesn't really mean anything as far as repairs or rebuilding.  In many cases, if the car was repainted after 1966, the roofwalk would be removed, but there were exceptions even there.  As the others have said, photos are your best guide, and I usually try to find photos of a car series on the various freight car photo sites.  Finding a photo of a specific car is hard, but one can usually find photos of the series, or a very similar one, to show what the railroad did.

"Plain" 40 ft boxcars seem to have kept their roofwalks in higher numbers than other cars, probably because they were largely obsolete by the 70s, and the railroads didn't want to spend money on them.  That said, among the BN's cars, I don't remember ever seeing a GN BSB, CB&Q green, NP "BN Green", or BN boxcar with a roofwalk.  Those were all painted after 1966.  I don't model them, but by the same reasoning, I would think that PC-painted cars with roofwalks would be rare, while PC-patched cars could easily have them.   

[Ed Kapuscinski]

The early 70s really was an interesting time freight car wise.

You get such a mix just like you've said.

It's why I kinda enjoy my PC diversion.

[garethashenden]

There is a wealth of info in this video,and  a shameless plug for my own upload too . It is not the greatest quality, but it shows the common car types and you can see roofwalks slowly fade out of the picture too. The video starts in the 60s and ends in the late 70s, everything until you see the GP38-2s is leading up to 1974. I think most of it was shot in Mass, but I'm not totally sure, I didn't shoot it, I just rescued it from VHS.

That's an interesting video, but is it strictly chronological? There's a Bicentennial GP9 fairly early on, well before any footage of GP38-2s.


Another question, what on earth is this thing? It looks like a three unit articulated tank car. Did such a thing exist or are the trucks just blending together? Circa 1976.



Also, any idea when covered gondolas started appearing?

[sirenwerks]

"Plain" 40 ft boxcars seem to have kept their roofwalks in higher numbers than other cars, probably because they were largely obsolete by the 70s, and the railroads didn't want to spend money on them.  That said, among the BN's cars, I don't remember ever seeing a GN BSB, CB&Q green, NP "BN Green", or BN boxcar with a roofwalk.  Those were all painted after 1966.  I don't model them, but by the same reasoning, I would think that PC-painted cars with roofwalks would be rare, while PC-patched cars could easily have them.

Hill Line roads, as well as some other Grange-serving roads (SOO...), were still pretty dependent on 40-footers for grain service on branch lines into the 70s. Add to that a relative shortage of cars, especially during peak season, and cars were kept out of the shop, when there roofwalks might have been removed, as much as possible. Word is that, during harvest season, any roads' 40 footer that happened to be in the yard were in danger of being briefly shanghi-ed into grain service before being returned.

[coosvalley]

Honestly I'm not sure about any of the dates for that video, except that the VHS tape was labeled B&M 60s and 70s. It "seems" to generally be in order of time, but there could some be time overlap between reels, if that makes sense.. There seems to be a GP38-2 coupled to that Bicentennial GP9, so that was definitely post '74...Viewer beware!

And that is an interesting tank car thing!..Maybe an early version of TankTrain?

[randgust]

I can speak for a couple - basically PC that was in my hometown, and ATSF that I model in that era.

PC had an ENORMOUS fleet of obsolete and bad-order boxcars.   If a car had to be shopped it would get the treatment, but wow, it was slow.   What you won't see in most cases is what I'd call an ex-PRR or NYC car with the roofwalks removed, it would have at least got the patch job to PC, and maybe some fresh paint with new dimensional data on it, later on the lube plate.  But rarely if ever would you see a car strictly brought in to do the roofwalks.   And don't forget, to do it right the ladders and brake gear get lowered too.

PC had so many excess and obsolete cars that they simply didn't bother on a lot of them and they died in Hollidaysburg as bad order.   What I can't say that I've seen is any "PC" 40' boxcars or even 50' that got either the brown patch job or NYC cars redone in jade and still kept the walks.   Technically you really shouldn't see a re-stenciled "PC" car with walks, or a new PC car with walks, as remember the merger was 68.   I'm sure there had to be some jade-green repaint PC boxes with roofwalks, but you're pushing the averages of reality here.

ATSF is completely different.  Remember that 1972 was also the debut of the yellowbonnet paint scheme (post Amtrak), and also the debut of the "Santa Fe" boxcar red billboard scheme replacing Shock Control, Ship & Travel, all that stuff.   So on boxcars, particularly the 40' fleet, they'd get the whole treatment - new paint, pull the roofwalks, lower the ladders and handbrake.  I've never seen an original "Route of the _____" car just with roofwalk pulled, or a "Santa Fe" billboard car WITH a roofwalk, both are mistakes   That foobie shows up on a lot of models.   It's amazing how many 40' boxcars did get the full treatment and lasted only a few more years.

Now, better cars - with better paint - would get the walks pulled with minimal repainting, but same deal.  MTC reefers would loose them when they came in and came back out with the billboard on them even as a patch.  I have seen some Shock Control red boxes that were not repainted at all with walks pulled and ladders lowered, just paint retouching of the weld spots where the ladders were yanked.   It's OK on a model to trim the ladders down and repaint that area 'sorta close' with fresh paint, happened all the time.     

Boxcars were getting so rare around here by the mid-70's you started photographing them, particularly with original schemes still on them.  The final kick was the introduction of the Railbox fleet in....75? so that no self-respecting shipper wanted the old crap cars anymore.

I've got an absolutely outstanding aerial shot of Corwith, IL yard taken in 1971 that literally shows hundreds and hundreds of boxcars with and without roofwalks,  mostly ATSF, but also everybody else, and it's about 50/50, and very much based on car age and original scheme.

So bottom line is that it varies a lot by railroad and era, but there were a lot of other things going on at the same time.   The ACI label program was equally massive, and that went to just about everything all at once.   Don't forget the beginnings of the lube plate era too.

[garethashenden]

Thanks Randgust! That’s exactly the sort of information I’m looking for. I can spend the time to research one of two, maybe even three railroads and how they approached things, but I can’t cover everything and it’s very helpful to have someone give such specific details of two bigger companies.

[nkalanaga]

Sirenwerks:  Yes, the grain rush caused a lot of problems.  BY the BN era, covered hoppers were more popular with the elevators, but there still weren't nearly enough to go around.  On the other hand, just any 40 ft boxcar wouldn't work.  Grain service actually required top-quality cars, with clean, tight interior lining and floors, because anything less would either contaminate the grain, or allow it to leak out.  The cars from most non-grain roads, by the late 60s, often weren't fit for grain service. 

I think part of the reason the grain roads kept roofwalks on their 40 ft cars as long as they did was to give elevator workers somewhere to walk.  Loading grain through the door required a worker on the roof, so ladders and roofwalks were still essential.  The AAR wanted the roofwalks removed, but the customers didn't.

In the early 70s, the car shortage was so severe that the BN was lining stock cars with plywood for hauling grain, and in a few cases, using retired iced reefers as roof-hatch boxcars.  The reefers were actually nice cars, except for the limited capacity, as they were easy to load, and didn't need grain doors.  The stock cars weren't at all popular.

Traditionally, a few months before the harvest started, the grain roads would start requesting that other roads return all of their "grain cars", so they could be cleaned and stockpiled for the grain rush.  By harvest, there'd be lines of empty boxcars in every available storage track.

Then, in the mid 70s, as the roads acquired enough covered hoppers to do the job, the bottom fell out of the 40 ft boxcar market.  As far as I know, the last place the BN used them for grain was the Mansfield Branch, near Wenatchee, where they ran into the early 80s, until the branch was abandoned and trucks took over.  The ancient rail was too light for 100-ton cars, and there wasn't enough business to make it worth upgrading.

The LAST place BN used them in revenue service, as far as I know, was Texas, for cotton bales.  It seems that cotton was shipped, and billed, by the boxcar, and using a 50 ft car threw the billing off.

[Mark5]

See photos from the period (as mentioned by others).

There were plenty of 40 footers out there - at least until the mid 70s.

Mark

[nscalbitz]

Cars that survived their prescribed 40 year life span from WWII easily made the late '70's.

D&RGW invested heavily in new steel boxes in 1939 (the real start of THAT war>  ) and many continued in company service as well as traded out for refit; just as in '66 they bought a bunch (their first and only) of PS-1 (refitted) boxes less than a decade old to fill traffic needs (not grain).
FWIW, d

[Espeeman]

The timing on this thread couldn't be any better! I am modeling a snippet of the SP between 1967 and 1971. My issue is that Amtrak took the passenger service in May 71 ( I love my Alco PA's in scarlet and gray) but my favorite box cars were also produced in 1971, so I flip-flop back and forth between those two years depending on what I want to run. I was just recently reading about the timing of SP removing the roof walks and what were the percentage of those with and those without. My current heard is probably close enough given that most of my boxcars were produced from the late 1950's through 1971. So thanks for starting this thread and thank you to those who uploaded the videos! Great stuff!

Hmmm, this just occurred to me. Amtrak took over long distance passenger service nation wide in May '71 but that doesn't necessarily mean it took over local service so I can probably still run a prototypical SP passenger train and not break out in hives!