A friend has recently purchased a Southern X-600 series caboose (X-621, IIRC). He's definitely a novice at moving railcars, and has gotten into a dispute over the car's weight with the contractor he hired to move the car. The contractor claims the car weighs 35 tons, which seems a bit heavy for a rather plain (but complete) bay-window cab. Does anybody who has one of the Southern X-600 series cabooses know their actual weight? Naturally it's not marked on the car anywhere.

FYI, the car will be coming to SCRM if he can resolve the problems and get it moved. It's currently in Georgia.

The South Carolina Railroad Museum, Inc.
mconrad@msmgmt.com

> A friend has recently purchased a Southern
> X-600 series caboose (X-621, IIRC). He's
> definitely a novice at moving railcars, and
> has gotten into a dispute over the car's
> weight with the contractor he hired to move
> the car. The contractor claims the car
> weighs 35 tons, which seems a bit heavy for
> a rather plain (but complete) bay-window
> cab.

I do not have specific info for that series, but most of the steel cabooses at IRM are listed at about 25 tons, some much less, maybe 22 tons. Did the SP units have anything unusual for a caboose like a concrete floor? (ala some passenger cars) If nothing else you will have to load it and run it over a certified scale to resolve this, but by then you will be committed whatever the answer.

As one 'last resort' you should be able to get some load cells on loan from a local commercial scale company and do some jacking with the cell between the head of the jack and the carbody. Two of them on one end should give a close number for the carbody (double the result) and the weight of the trucks should be easier to estimate from published and available info.

Bob Kutella


68trolley@comcast.net

Did the - - SOUTHERN - - -units have
anything unusual for a caboose like a
concrete floor? (ala some passenger cars)

Bob Kutella - feeling like a mope at 4 AM, probably not much different than at mid day


68trolley@comcast.net

Flooring on these cabs is timber about 3" thick joined T&G down their length and clamped to the underframe.

dave

irondave@bellsouth.net

Actually, 2.5 inches thick laminated boards about 12 inches wide with T&G joints. (From having just replaced the floor in Southern X-401, now Georgia Northern X-153 stand-in.) I'll see if I can round up the weight. I suppose this is the caboose in Cochran, GA? I'm thinking 25 - 30 ton range for the intact car, but I'll try to confirm.

> Flooring on these cabs is timber about
> 3" thick joined T&G down their
> length and clamped to the underframe.

> dave


ssyfrett@bellsouth.net

There is a very nice color photo of X600 in James Kinkaid's book "Southern Railway Color Guide to Freight and Passenger Equipment", Morning Sun Books, 1996. It was taken in Atlanta, GA on July 18, 1981 by Jim King. The caption indicates this was a Hayne Shop rebuild. The car originated as Georgia Southern & Florida X8543, built June 1951 and was rebuilt at Hayne in July 1968. It also says "This car represented the beginning of the first rebuilding program by the Southern." It was the first of the series X600 - X793, 194 cabeese in total!

Our X401 was built new by Gantt Manufacturing in 1969, so there would likely be some slight weight variations. Unfortunately, I could not find a weight for either.

This brings to mind a question: Why was the weight of a caboose not stenciled on the car?

Stephen

ssyfrett@bellsouth.net

For reference, I have a UP CA-7 caboose, and it is all steel center cupola caboose. Fully loaded, fueled, and watered, it weighs in at 58,000 pounds. Trucking weight is about 50,000 pounds.



greg@cscvrr.org