SP&S 218 is a fine looking car, from the brief period (1910-1912) when B&S was building wood cars on all steel underframes. Am I correct in assuming the 1915 built coaches are all steel?

Yes, it did built steel cars. Some of the original passenger cars on the Western Pacific were steel and built by B&S.

One of the baggage-lounge cars paid for by the Rio Grande after being returned from lease to the Rio Grande it was rebuilt to a baggage car and ended up at Orange Empire (now Southern California) Ry Museum. It is one of two baggage cars purchased from the D&RGW in 1967 by a member to house a collection of toy trains and other memorabilia.

The Museum at Perris has three very different B&S cars. A wooden narrow-gauge coach built in 1881 for the Carson & Colorado. A Soo Line business car built by the Soo Line using the steel frame of a B&S built baggage-coach. And the above mentioned car.

A book entitled "A history of the Barney & Smith car company of Dayton, Ohio.
With short biographical sketches of some of the men ... connected with the company, together with reminiscences of some interesting events" was published by Harry M Estabrook in 1911, before the floods, but it doesn't include any photos of passenger cars for some odd reason: https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id= ... =1up&seq=1

Yes, Brian, I am aware of that. My question was are these particular cars, constructed in 1915, wood, wood on steel underframe, or steel, in an attempt to see how much overlap there was between the methods of construction.

My main area of interest is the Soo Line, which was a steady B&S customer at the time. That road received its last wood underframe cars from B&S in 1909; combination baggage mail cars. In 1910 they received additional baggage mail cars, identical except on steel underframes. The following year they received the first all steel cars from B&S, coaches, although a business car delivered that year was again a wood body on a steel underframe. Additional cars purchased in 1913 were all steel.

But that's only one railroad's purchasing decisions. Here from the info on the cars preserved at the Northwest Railway Museum, I find another wood S.U.F. car built in 1912. I'm rather curious how long they continued offering that construction. For that matter, does anyone know when they constructed their FIRST steel passenger car? While I read Mr. Trostle's book, it was a borrowed copy and I don't have it for reference.

In the Estabrook book (a link to which I posted in the post above yours) it says on page 91: "In the year 1909 commenced the transition in passenger car construction, from wood or composite construction, to steel cars of various designs of construction, and the demands for this type of car becoming so urgent, the company commenced accepting orders for steel passenger cars in the latter half of 1909".

Thanks, that book is on my list of things to read since you posted the link. If B&S was offering to build steel passenger cars in 1909, they were really not far behind the industry leaders. Yes, Pullman built the JAMESTOWN in 1907, but I don't believe they made a production run of steel cars until 1910. B&S was delivering steel cars at least by 1911.

The first all steel cars for the "Harriman" SP & UP were built by Pullman in 1909, first a group of baggage cars and then a group of coaches in that year.

By comparison, the Santa Fe was buying passenger cars with steel underframes, carlines and other framing but with wood interiors and exteriors into 1911.