When the Pennsylvania Railroad introduced its piggyback program with its TrucTrain service back in 1954, it was started with the conversion of 90 F30d class flat cars. This was increased the next year with the addition of 25 more F30d's, or a total of 115 cars. During 1957 and 1958, 86 of these F30d's were transferred to the Trailer Train Company when that company came into existence. Our museum has one of these original F30d class Trailer Train flatcars, number 475037. We have long thought that we might convert this car back to its original Pennsy configuration before its piggyback service, although we were never able to find the original PRR number for the car. Recently however, we have decided to try to restore the car to its original 1957/58 configuration as best we can, and re-letter it back as TTX 475037. Along those lines, we have removed some of the additional steel work dating to a 1981/1982 upgrade and recently repainted the car into its freight car (Tuscan) red paint. Some photos are included below. We need some help with this project, and I'll send another entry with that explanation.

Les

The plan with this project is to mount our REA trailer on this car. A photo of it is included below. Tom Travis of our museum has painted the body but it still needs more work, including the addition of red paint, Railway Express Agency logos, door repair and (hopefully) some authentic advertising signs for both sides.

Also needed with be two bridge plates; one for each end of the car, to duplicate the old "circus" loading. The plan is to weld these plates in the upright position as we do not intend to unload the trailer after it is set onto the car. We have been told that these original bridge plates were the same as for F39 class TTX long flats, and we have been given a drawing, also shown below. If anyone knows of the whereabouts of genuine bridge plates, we would like to know so that we could mount them on the car. If we can't find any, we will replicate the bridge plates with flat steel.

Finally, we are also enclosing a photo of sister TTX flat car number 475056 show a Kramer Bros. trailer mounted on the car. We need to find the original lettering for the car as shown on 475056. If anyone can furnish that lettering diagram so that we can make stencils, we would be most appreciative.

Thanks for any help that can be offered.

Les Beckman (Hoosier Valley Railroad Museum/North Judson, Indiana)

While I can't be of any help, I'd just like to say that I'm glad you decided to preserve the car in it's TTX state. Flatcars are worth preserving too, but the TTX operation was the beginning of TOFC and eventually container trains, something that arguably led to the survival of railroads. It's a very important part of the historical record, and well worth saving.

Thanks Bob. We finally woke up to that fact too. There are a couple of Pennsy F30d class flats still in existence (a total of 250 were built), but we wonder if this might be the only example of the first 86 TTX flats that is still around.

Les

Pennsylvania Transformer Technology Co. at Canonsburg, PA has in use at its facility a number of ex-PRR cast underframe flatcars that may be the same class as what's pictured here. These are very original, with solid bearing journals. As for determining their original numbers, that might be difficult. Large transformers are routinely painted while aboard these flats and as a result they have been covered with many layers of primer and gray paint. I did see a number stenciled on the center member of the frame of one such car, so the information may be there. These cars have been in this use for some decades. There are about 4 to 6 of them, switched around by the plant's 1947 65 ton Whitcomb centercab.

Thanks David. My guess is that these cars are part of the original group of 250 F30d class flat cars that weren't transferred to Trailer Train. So, probably do not have any of the bridge plates used to load/unload the cars. The original PRR number of our TTX flat is no longer important (although it would be nice to know) since we are going to use the TTX assigned number (475037).

Les

That would be a good guess, Les. No sign of bridge plates, etc on these cars. They have all had new decks of 4" thick treated lumber in recent years, so anything that was there before is long gone. Every one of these cars is as straight as the day it was cast, definitely an indestructable object.

Bob -

Some good news on this. Howard Pincus had an old Pennsylvania Railroad blueprint dated 10-8-57 for the lettering arrangement for these Trailer Train F30D class cars and graciously sent the print to us. So, another piece of the puzzle has been put into place! Thanks Howard!

This is just one additional example of how RyPN continues to be a valuable tool to those of us interested in railroad preservation.


Les

Question: Did the Pennsy have a standard font for Roman numerals? We have the font for the 9" T.T.X. letters for the F30D flat car, but the numbers on the car are 7". I guess we could use just any Roman style 7" numbers, but would prefer to use standard PRR lettering if such a thing exists. Anyone know?

Thanks!

Les

Les,

As for the Roman Numeral fonts, it wouldn't be too hard to make a copy of the original numbers, provided you can find a good sample, either painted on car or visible in a hi-res photograph.

All it would involve is procuring a straight-on digital photograph of the font and tracing it in a vector graphics editor (like Illustrator or Inkscape), which would allow the new image to be scaled up or down. That image could then be printed and used to create a stencil for the car.

--Drew Black

I guess I have been very lax on this thread. I got a note from Jim Panza today, that made me realize it. More on that note in a moment, but first, some info. Jim used to work for TTX and was instrumental a while back in finding a company that agreed to make duplicates of the two bridge plates for this car and eventually they were delivered to HVRM. They are beautiful, and may even be nicer than the originals! I have been slowly painting them over a period of time and I'm going to try to post photos herein. PROVIDING I have them in the right sequence, the first photo shows the plates after they were received and in their bare metal state and the second one shows one in primer and one in the finished Freight Car Red. On a visit to IRM over Father's Day weekend, I was startled to see that their TOFC car had one white side and Jim confirmed that this is the way they were painted so that the truck drivers could more readily see the bridge plates as they loaded or unloaded the trailers from the cars. So the 3rd photo in the sequence shows one of the bridge plates so painted.

As I said, I got a note from Jim earlier today and he advised me that in checking some old company records, he actually found the original Pennsylvania Railroad F30D car number! TTX #475037 was once PRR #475403. Although we now have the Pennsy car number, we are going to go ahead and restore this car as TTX 475037!

Les