Folks, the group working on the 565 are also looking to help where we can. So it's been brought up about doing a faster project than the 565. We are going to continue work on the 565 but we have talents in other areas. So we are looking at the CNJ boxcar up there as a side project.
Can anyone give us some links or info on the what wood we would need for that car? She will be a static display/storage car. The metal is in good condition just rusty.

Thanks in advance.

CNJ boxcar was traded to Steamtown by RMNE about 1993, in exchange for a similar CV car. The CNJ car was used as the "enginehouse" by Valley Railroad at Essex, CT for the first few years of VRR operations, until a real shop building was built in 1975. It had originally been acquired by Empire State Railway Museum at Middletown NY and was shipped to VRR in late 1970. I know that car very well, as I scraped and sanded and primed it myself in 1972. Funny how a 40-foot boxcar seemed to morph into an 86-foot hi-cube!

There should be enough orginal lumber in the side sheathing to give you proper cross-sectional information to reproduce the sheathing. Likewise, the doors can be removed from the car, laid out horizontally on stands and reconstructed to original dimensions.

I would suggest a good grade of seasoned fir lumber, good old-growth second-hand yellow pine would be great if you can get it. A good primer in these days of crummy paint would be a thinned polyurethane floor sealer, heavily applied to soak into all surfaces of the wood, then lightly scuff the surface and coat with the finish paint (freight car red) before applying the sheathing. The proper flat-head "car bolts" are still available, and make sure to use square nuts on the outside of the bracing. Steelwork should be grit blasted and epoxy primed, if possible, before finish painting. One final coat of finish paint after the whole thing is assembled should do it. Yes, it's "only a freight car", but it's not difficult to do it correctly and have a really nice result.

Should look good with Miss Liberty in white on the carside. Good luck!

Howard P.

Thanks Howard. We are just starting to look at this as a project. We have to work up a few documents for this and then figure what it's going to cost and have management budget for it.

Off the top of my head, I plan on painting/sealing all sides of the wood prior to installation. Also will paint all the metal first then install all the wood. Where the wood to metal contacts happen I will use some modern techniques to deal with dissiimilar materials touching.

Now just need some original pictures of the paint scheme.

Do you have a car number? I'd imagine it is old enough to have at least two, if not three, lettering options.

Rob

Steamtown boxcar is CRRofNJ 18049, built 1922. There are good photos of it (or a similar car) in Car Builder's Cyclopedias of that era, with the arched CRRofNJ lettering, etc. One side could be done like that (as-delivered) and the other done as late 1940s "Miss Liberty".

That was my plan for the thing in 1972-73.

Howard P.

Steve -

Do you have a current photo or two of CNJ 18049?


Les

I believe this is the car in question, http://www.rrpicturearchives.net/showPi ... ?id=808130

According to Eric Neubauer's listing of Pullman Companies freight cars, there was a series of 50 40-ft XM boxcars built in 1922 for CNJ, serial numbers 18000 - 18049 by Middletown Car Company, a subsidiary of Standard Steel Car. If this is the car that you are interested in, there are at least two areas to look for the siding cross section drawing, perhaps also the stenciling diagram. One is at the Pennsylvania State Archives in Harrisburg Pennsylvania, who have the Middletown drawing journal and many Middletown Car drawings. The other is the Pullman Library at the Illinois Railway Museum, where we have several thousand original drawings of Middletown Car in their later years. The only problem there is that most of those drawings are for foreign export and we have very little call for them, hence to reorganize the archival drawing tubes by drawing number has been low on the priority list. However, if you are interested in obtaining the drawing please contact us for an estimate of costs should we have the drawing (quite nominal compared to the effort).
Ted Anderson, IRM Pullman Library curator

The AAR has had standard mill sections for the wood to be used for sheathing, decking, and lining going back to the MCB days. Drawings of these standard sections have been published in most every edition of the Car Builder's Cyclopedia until the fifties, maybe later. If builder's drawings aren't available, these drawings of standard sections, combined with inspection of the existing, should be enough to determine what was used originally. If you can't find a copy of this drawing published anywhere, PM me and I'll extract a scan and send it to you.

The sides are basically going to be either tongue and groove or shiplap 2X6, while the doors are going to be V grove T&G car siding, either 3 1/4" wide, or 5 1/4" wide, with an extra groove in the center of the board. The "car siding" sold in modern day building supply stores isn't the right stuff; it's too wide, the grooves are too prominent, and it looks like a caricature of what is supposed to be there. It also tends to be milled from some mystery "white wood" that will rot away within a couple years. Small batches of 3 1/4" car siding used to be easily made from Douglas Fir porch flooring by simply routing the V detail onto the edges, but I'm not sure decent porch flooring is available any longer. Traditionally, both car siding and porch flooring were milled as "edge grain" with the annual rings passing through the thickness of the board; this made it more wear resistant and minimized the large areas of early and late wood that encouraged the paint to blow off.

It might be tempting to try to do the sides with pressure treated 2X6, but without the joint detail the sides will not be water tight, and pressure treated wood tends to warp and twist badly as it dries. Much better to try to get the siding custom milled from boards cut from salvaged timbers from old mill framed buildings. These are a considerably better grade of lumber. Anyway, you will need 18' lengths for the side sheathing, since each board is a single length from end to door, and there are no provisions on the frame for splicing the boards.

Good luck with the project.

CNJ 18049 loaded on a TTX flat, enroute from Saybrook, Conn. to Scranton, at Palmer, Mass. on May 24, 1995. The Pullman "Arsenal Tower" is in between the CNJ load and a DL&W 36-ft boxcar on a second TTX flat. The DL&W car is now restored and on display at Steamtown NHS.

Further on Dennis' comments, there are also good drawings of the doors in both the Car Builders Cycs, and in relevant ICS books. The car lumber cross-sections are also in the Cycs.

Howard P.

Usual specified lumber at least for the Reading was yellow pine.

A back issue of Flags, Diamonds and Statues has an article on the early CNJ steel boxcars from the 1920's and has photos that show the early CNJ lettering which was also used on this car.
As far as a later paint style we can probably help.
I've looked at this car several times myself daydreaming on how to attack the project. Let us know if we can be of assistance.

Richard Jahn
ARHS

Dennis, thanks for the info. I didn't realize that the 2x6's are grooved. That will not be a problem with Steamtown's wood shop. I think we may try to get rough cut douglas fir, cheaper, and we can final mill it in the wood shop.
We have to document alot of the details so this is really in the beginning stages. But if I have someone who wants to do that it's really not bad, just alot of typing.

Rich, I think we should get together and see what we can do as a team. Maybe we can work it with both crews and she would look good with the CNJ crane! Let's see if we can get together after the holidays. Summer project?

Shiplap may also have been used, and may be easier to mill (it's basically a simple half lap joint). Just be sure to lay it up so it sheds, rather than traps, water.

If you bother to find the AAR drawings, you will see that their idea of a 2x6 is 1-3/4" thick rather than the current 1-1/2", with a full 5-1/4" face and a 1/2" lap, so needs to be cut out of a full 6". The T&G dimensions are similar. Not really a problem if you can have it custom milled. If you can work it out so the boards are milled edge grain, so much the better.

Someone mentioned Yellow Pine. Railroad spec's, in days of yore, were based upon local availability / cost vs. expected life until replacement. Since we don't have a whole army of carmen making ten dollars a day, we need to pick materials that hopefully will never need replacement again, at least not in our lifetime. Old growth YP cut from timbers might last longer than newly cut lumber from fast growth "managed" forests, but Douglas Fir has a reputation for better rot resistance in general. Not so for the Spruce, Pine, Fir, Hemlock, and Larch that are typically cut for today's construction lumber. Natural decay resistance is particularly important now that we can no longer use the better rot prevention chemicals, although I'd still be inclined to give everything a swabbing with a borate preparation such as Bora-Care, even though it is water soluble and will eventually leach out.

I sugest you make friends with a local sawmill and scavange old structures that are being demolished. A small Delta planer and a V-groove bit in a table saw will be all the specialization you need to finish basic shiplap - add a shaper (get a Gil Bilt kit and make your own) with a set of T&G cutters and you can mill that yourself too. Woorth the investment of you plan on doing a lot of wooden car work.

dave