I was just wondering if anybody knew what year (or any other info) this wooden boxcar may be from(see attached photo) it sits at a farm house that borders the old Illinois, Iowa & Minnesota Railway ROW, that later became the Chicago, Milwaukee & Gary Railway, and finally Milwaukee Road in 1922 and now is a bike path named not for one of the former railroads but named The Wauponsee Glacial Trail
Thanks
Bill

I bet it's a former CB&Q car, there used to be dozens, maybe hundreds of these scattered all over northeastern Illinois, all missing the underframe, as does this one (note the end sill is missing between the two center end posts). It doesn't matter what railroad it might be along; I've seen them along the C&NW in Malta, and the CGW in West Chicago, they just have to be within trucking distance of Aurora, which is where the Burlington was selling them. Each was prepared for sale in a like fashion; all the grab irons were torched off, and the entire underframe (centersills, bolsters, and crossbearers) was cut out, usually by cutting the end sill around the striker casting. Lengths of used bridge timbers were then fitted into the side sill flanges to support the existing floor. This retained most of the steel scrap for the railroad, while making the body lighter and easier for the farmer to have trucked to his property, and still yielded a serviceable shed.

Most of these are now past the end of their useful life, and have been disappearing one by one. At last count (not that I'm counting) there are two on the east side of US 30 / ILL 47 just north of where 30 turns east toward Montgomery, and another just west of Dauberman Rd., just south of Main St. in Kaneville. This last is only a mile or two from the CM&G ROW, which passes just south of Kaneville, but the car bears no relationship to that line.

Thanks for the info Dennis, that's really interesting, I talked with a guy I know that lives in Montgomery and he saw those two you talked about on the east side of US30 he said he's hoping to see someone out there someday so he can ask to take a look at them.
I saw two others south of Morris that I have to revisit for a closer look one of these days

Thanks again
Bill

I joined this list almost exactly ten years ago looking for an intact underframe for a USRA 40 ton car... I thought some might have survived under steel rebuilds, but no luck. My reason was a friend had found a CB&Q double sheathed USRA car just north of Plano, almost completely hidden with a shed along each side. We were hoping that the shed roofs had protected the car sides well enough to make the car saveable, if it could be grafted to a new underframe. In the January cold, the sides looked pretty good.

I went back and took a second look in March, when the snow was melting, and realized the shed roofs were attached below the original eaves, and had been diverting water into the car framing for years... the steel side sills were just about rusted through where they were exposed below the wood framing of the sides, and I'm sure they were pretty much gone along their upper edges where the wood held the water against them. That, and no underframe forthcoming sealed the car's fate, and it's gone now.

The single sheathed cars are more common, and seem to hold up better, but again, have no underframes. I'm sure that a new underframe could be fabricated, but with complete cars going to scrap (like the dozen or so in Mount Union just this winter) why bother?