Any idea what or where this is from? Rock Island maybe?



http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=5963627597&fromMakeTrack=true

My guess would be CB&Q, and I base this on the end view photo, which shows the middle portion of the end sill to be missing. This seemed to be standard CB&Q practice when preparing boxcars for sale as sheds; the entire centersill including the striker castings, bolsters, and crossbearers was cut out and salvaged for scrap, and reclaimed bridge timbers were fitted between the flanges of the side sills to support the floor. There used to be dozens of these bodies here in the Aurora area, and are still a couple left; all worthless for preservation because they lack underframes.

So beware before you bid.

The car is only 'worthless' if one wishes to re-build it as a boxcar. However, If the car were to be preserved as-is (representing how many such cars survived into the 21st century) then it may be acceptable in its current form. The question then moves on to what is its current condtion, what role would it play at a museum site, and what is is the long-term storage plan (it won't survive outside forever).

Do any still survive around Aurora?

(I presume you mean Aurora, Illinois)

Tom Cornillie

Tom,
There are two being used as a shed on Illinois Route 47 about 1 1/2 miles south of the former CB&Q C&I (Aurora - Minneapolis mainline) between Sugar Grove, IL and Aurora. There was one in Oswego, IL (just south of Aurora on the Streator branch) but it was destroyed about 5 years ago when Oswego exploded into another Chicago bedroom community. I'll have to think about others in the area.

Don C.

The two along Rt. 47 were still there last time I went by, sometime within the last couple of months, and look to be in better shape that the one on auction on e-bay. There is another on the south property line of the farm house at the corner of Main Street Road and Dauberman Road in Kaneville, IL, but it is so overgrown now that it is almost invisible; it's still there, I pass it every day. There was a very nicely preserved one at an elevator in Malta, IL, right along the C&NW main. This one was supported by 55gal. drums filled with concrete, and so was well out of the mud. I don't know if this one still exists.

The CB&Q single sheathed cars with composite ends fare pretty well, as they are all heavy section structural steel. Not so with the USRA double sheathed car in Plano, IL; shed roofs attached to the car sides have diverted water into the walls for decades, and the wooden framing is shot.

All that being said, it seems to me that preserving a farm shed is more in the province of a museum of American rural life than a railway museum. There is little enough money available to restore cars that are mostly intact.