We've recently been talking on the Monon Railroad Historical-Technical Society discussion website about ventilated boxcars. A photo of such a car on a Monon Railroad freight train in 1950 was sent in; the car appearing to be a Central of Georgia car. My guess is that most of these cars were rostered on southern railroads like the CofG, ACL, FEC, SAL, etc. Can anyone confirm this? And more importantly, since these cars had to disappear probably before the rail preservation movement really started to get rolling, do any of them still exist at some museum?

Thanks.

Les

Many in the South referred to this type of car as a "watermelon car" and they were used to move that commodity into the 1960's, until rail movement of melons ceased entirely. While many roads had such cars prior to the advent of the motor truck, after World War II they were principally owned by the Southern railroads, especially the ACL and SAL.

I believe there are a couple preserved, but I do not recall where they are.

They were also common in the West. Here they were frequently called combo cars or strawberry cars.Central Pacific owned many. The California narrow gauges used them extensively.

The Nevada State Railroad Museum has a Virginia and Truckee car, (built by the CP Sacramento shops for the V&T) fully restored.

On the narrow gauge side the Society for the Preservation of Carter Railroad Resources at Ardenwood in Fremont has the body of a 1880 Carter narrow gauge. We are currently working on a restoration plan, and with a little luck and much work it should be on display sometime in the next 10 years or so.

I'm not sure if it's a true watermelon car, but we have a box with louvers at SCRM. True watermelon cars had the vents in the ends, ours has a single vent in the lower right corner of each side: