In today's work session in restoring our Lawndale Railway boxcar, we ran across something that struck us as quite odd. The planks of the flooring are nailed down throughout most of the car; however, all 8 planks that are in the area between the boxcar doors were press fit completely. That is, there were NO nails or any other sort of fastner holding down these planks to the side sills, center sills, or intermediate sills. There simply was no fastner of any kind, nor had there ever been. On the other hand, all of the other flooring, from the edge of the boxcar doors all the way to the ends of the cars were nailed down.

Is is this typical? What would the purpose be? There has never been any indication that these cars were unloaded a la' hopper style.

Any insight appreciated.

Matt Bumgarner
Alexander Chapter-NRHS