A friend and myself went exploring this morning and came upon three very old wooden boxcars in relatively good shape. The dimensions are 34 feet long by 7' 1.5", with six wooden sills running the length of the cars and wooden bolsters. No trucks or brake hardware, though most other hardware seems to exist. Doors are on the cars with handles at their bottom, not sides, and the roof appears to be lapped tin.

On two cars, there are large washers at the end of truss rods above the coupler pockets that appear to be cast C&O, but admittedly, that & and O might just be what we think we want see.

Otherwise, there is no clue visibly on the cars as to their heritage and their location is going to make finding the owner quite a chore to ask him questions.

Some of our circle have thought they might be of narrow gauge vintage; however, their location seems very remote for any of the viable candidates. Also, with the existence of these 3 cars, there are some roster problems with a couple of the candidate lines as well.

That being said, could they be vintage standard gauge cars instead? The location makes more sense for this, and I do know that 34' could be found in std gauge cars, but the 7' width is troubling me a bit on this one and I have no records I can easily check.

Any expertise out there?

Thanks,

Matt Bumgarner

You didn't mention where you found said carbodies. There are some known narrow gage carbodies north of Shelby from the old Lawndale line, not far from Hickory, which might be what you found if you weren't far from home.

dave

No, not Shelby or anywhere in the Lawndale vicinity. Our group is working on one of the Lawndale cars as an active project now. And while the Lawndale is one of our candidate roads, but these cars are far to the west of there.

Matt

Matt -

Any chance you could post some photos?

Les