Went to the local historical society open house today and took some shots through a showcase of photos of the railroad line being double tracked through Homeworth. I really dig the side dump cars and 0-4-0T in the photos. Anyone have any info on the company that made these cars or do any still exisit? It appears that they say The France Co. Could this be the builder of the car or the name of the contractor doing the work?
Thanks!
Rob Sundberg

Would that possibly be the France Stone Co.? At the Bellevue Mad River & NKP train museum they have a old steel side dump car from the France Stone Co. wich came from one of the local quarries either at Bellevue or Flatrock Oh.Although not as old and a bit different than the ones in your photo's it is still a old side dump car with arch bar trucks.They have a photo of it on thier website at:

http://www.madrivermuseum.org/gallery/e ... dumper.jpg

Rob -

I understand from some members of our museum, that there was a France Stone Company quarry in Logansport, Indiana. And that there were other France Stone quarries besides that one. As for the dump cars, we have three wood bodied dump cars at HVRM which are very similar to the cars in the photographs. These particular cars were at the Vulcan stone quarry in West Lafayette, Indiana, just to the west of the Purdue University campus. They are very interesting cars. Two of them are double truck cars, but the third is a 4 wheel car! They are all center pivot cars and appear to be hand dumped, with dumping to either side. The 8 wheel cars have CI&L cast in the trucks but the Monon Railroad Historical-Technical Society does not believe that the railroad ever had this type of car on their roster. Considering that the Monon had their main shops in Lafayette, I think that perhaps the cars were given new trucks by the Monon shop folks, replacing the original arch bar trucks. Vulcan Materials donated the cars to our museum a number of years ago. Our intention was to give them new wood sides, but like many things at railroad museums, this had been put on the "back burner". If you want to see the cars, please come out for a visit. With the exception of the trucks, they are probably pretty much "as built" and the 4 wheel car is probably still in its original configuration.

Les Beckman (Hoosier Valley Railroad Museum/North Judson, Indiana)

Google Books is your friend:

http://www.google.com/search?tbs=bks:1, ... %22&num=10

Listed as a construction company in Toledo.

Richard Wilkens