Happened upon this photo of Great Northern #44320 on the internet tonight:

http://www.rrpicturearchives.net/showPi ... id=2385630

Caption says the car was converted with steel sides in the GN's St. Cloud shops in 1963. Don't know if this was a one time conversion, or if there was a program to do this and other cars were also so modified.

Les

Here is maybe a Double sheathed boxcar converted to steel preserved.
look
viewtopic.php?f=1&t=48221&p=346297#p346297

linkthebutler -

Thanks for the note. Quite a few railroads rebuilt wood sided cars with steel sides, as in your example. The subject of this particular thread however, are wood sided cars converted to steel sides WITH the outside braces remaining in place. And the fact that a few of these particular conversions are still around.

As for the question about the Washington State Railroads Historical Society and Museum in Pasco, Washington still being in existence, I'm not sure about that myself. Not much info on the internet.

Thanks again.

Les

From a comment about Washington State Railroads Historical Society and Museum at tripadvisor.com referring to a 2020 visit -

"This museum was evicted from the building in the Trip advisor picture about 2017. It was permanently disbanded in 2019. Some of its artifacts went to the Franklin County Museum but most went to the Northern Pacific Railway Museum in Toppenish, WA."

Google street view shows their building in May, 2012. In October, 2019 the entire block had been razed, and in August, 2022 the lot is a staging area for a new highway.

We have talked about a couple of Southern Pacific outside braced (single sheathed) steel boxcars in this thread, including the info from David A. Vago above. I just saw a video on the internet of a vintage freight train on the Albany & Eastern up in Oregon behind SMV 2-6-2 # 205, and the car behind the tender appears that it MIGHT be one of these single sheathed wood cars that was converted to steel sides, keeping the outside braces in place. The car has a large SP herald on one end and the reporting marks S.P. 145098 on the other end. Couldn't catch whether the car was indeed a steel sided outside braced car or not. And couldn't find any info about a vintage steam-era boxcar on the Albany & Eastern website. Perhaps someone might have some better information.

Les

http://www.railgoat.railfan.net/spcars/ ... /index.htm http://espee.railfan.net/sp_fcss-index.html I checked several rosters and from what I can see there weren't any cars in the SP 145000 series, although it is possible that they were retired before they showed up on modern rosters. Do you have a link to the video?

PMC -

I tried to find the video again but stumbled across this photo of the car behind the SMV 2-6-2:

https://www.rrpicturearchives.net/showP ... id=6029851

This photo does show that car and its reporting marks and road number, pretty well.

Les

PMC -

I found this photo tonight on the internet:

https://www.rrpicturearchives.net/showP ... id=4600082

The SP boxcar in this photo is numbered 114421 and although not in the same number series as the boxcar in question, the car DOES appear to be of the same general type. It sure would be nice to know who actually owns SP 145098. Is it the Albany & Eastern, or possibly some historical society? The owner might well know the cars history.

Les

Yes indeed, that would be the right series. I have looked at Albany & Eastern rosters and there isn't a car like that on there (the reporting marks are wrong obviously, A&E is AERX), but I would bet it is their car. The Santium Excursion train is owned by A&E, and the passenger cars all have either AERX, WFRX, or RFRX reporting marks. The boxcar likely has plain bearings and couldn't interchange anyway, so having reporting marks that belong to UP wouldn't matter.

There are not many ex SP B-50-15 with steel sheating around these days.
Just two come to my mind.

1) mounted behind the Oceana Railroad Depot/Museum in Oceana, CA.

2) long long long I mean very long time in the possession of the
"North West Chapter of the National Railroad Historical Society"
stored somewhere in Portland, OR.

reported for sale or scrap in 2016/17 see here page 3:
https://pnwc-nrhs.org/Trainmaster2017/TM-2017-02.pdf

reported sold to Yaquina Pacific Railroad Historical Society in 2020 see here page 7:
https://pnwc-nrhs.org/Trainmaster2020/TM-2020-07.pdf

here a picture from 1994:
https://nrhs.com/gallery-item/southern- ... hotograph/

In all that information it is numbered 5335 what it is in my opinion absolutely false!
The original number is in my 99% opinion 15335.

Maybe this is the boxcar behind #205 after some tlc and paint and fake numbering?

:-) Uwe

PS1: The picture of that 114xxx boxcar is after 1956.
That year SP renumbered all B-50-15 with a little life left into the 111xxx to 114xxx series.

PS2: The Orange Empire Railroad Museum have several MoW B-50-15 still with wood sheating in their collection.
All with doors cut into the currogated ends. Numbering in the SP MoW 1xxx series.

PS3 Roster for the cars is here:
http://www.railgoat.railfan.net/spcars/ ... 050-15.htm