o.K., I have heard them used as outbuildings, and several barns made out of boxcar wood, but never a whole barn made out of a couple of nearly intact boxcars.....

http://cgi.ebay.com/1900s-Railroad-boxcar_W0QQitemZ220168313762QQihZ012QQcategoryZ4132QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

With that number (666), this would have been a great post for Halloween!

Don C.

Actually, I think this is more common than you think. We have a building (I wouldn't really call it a barn) made roughly the same way that was donated to us a few years ago. The two cars are 36' long Cudahy refrigerator cars. There is a space in between that the farmer used for storing his combine (and other equipment on occassion) and there is a peaked roof running over the two cars. The museum did repair the roof recently and the building is currently used for storage (both the inside between the cars and the cars themselves.) Unfortunately, neither car has an underbody and water seepage through the years has not been kind to either one.

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

A rancher who is close to the Niles Canyon Railway had four ex-Rio Grande standard gauge wood side boxcars that he was using as a long skinny barn. He offered them to us but they were just the boxes, all the underframe was gone. So we salvaged what we could of of them and he buldozed the rest.

The Southeastern Railway Museum, Duluth (Atlanta), GA had a shop building constructed of 5 or 6 50-foot steel boxcars at their old location. The shop didn't get moved to the new site, so I presume the boxcars were all scrapped. Some of the cars were supposedly former Central of Georgia "football" or "watermelon" boxcars (black w/ silver oval). All had been repainted into a Southern Ry boxcar scheme before their use at the museum.

This is exceptionally common up here in Maine. The BAR scrapped it's huge fleet of yellow iced reefers and quite a few mechanical reefers, back around 1978. Farmers bought them like crazy to hold manure, house horses, shelter tractors, etc., etc. Driving through central Maine, you should have no problem finding the cars, some in exception shape, complete with frames and brake gear.

There were also numerous adaptations of this in the state of Ohio, in the 1970s much of the Erie Lackawanna 40 foot boxcar fleet was retired and a "used boxcar" lot sprung up across the street from the Marion shop. As far as I know every car on that lot was purchased for farm use.

PC

The area west of Aurora, IL is replete with CB&Q single sheathed boxcars that date to the teens and twenties, although attrition has been taking its toll these past several years. I stopped getting excited about finding one when I realized that each and every one had been carefully prepared for agricultural use by first removing as much heavy scrap as possible; removing the complete underframe while leaving the floor intact, then substituting pieces of used bridge timbers (one can still see the old bolt holes) wedged between the flanges of the side sill channels to support the wood floor stringers. The methodology is so consistent that it must have been done at the Aurora shops before the bodies were sold.

Lots of old boxcar bodies, but a complete lack of centersills and bolsters.

Guys,

You all are thinking too modern.

The Boulder County Railroad Historical Society found a box being as a storage building that was from the
narrow Gauge South Park line.

If I recall correctly, the car was built in the 1880s and was last used to build the Colorado & Denver line in about 1900.

They even found its number, when they trucked it to their Valmont site. I think. It is a lot of ancient wood!

Ted Miles

You guys want an underframe for a boxcar? The Pacific Locomotive Association has a deal for you. Check my earlier posts on the Santa Fe Reefer underframe we are trying to find a new home for. It has the centersill, truss rods, all the draft gear, arch bar trucks, and a K brake system. It's free a good home where it can be used. Give us a call.

Mid Continent found a narrow guage CN&W RR box car and a combine from the old Fennimore, Wi narrow guage line. The box car was cosmetically restored in about 1972 or so by Stan Mailer. The combine still sits under a roof waiting for a miracle to happen to it. Both cars are ancient.

The SOO line sold off a lot of wooden boxcars and reefers. From Fondulac to Green Bay you can still find them disguised as sheds. Most are as above without any underframe hardware and rotted away beyond any restoration hopes. I did find one that had a roof put over the original and is in great shape, complete with grain doors on the end. No bolsters or other hardware, but is on concrete foundation and the underside is in great shape! Would post pics but don't have any yet. I want to talk to the owner before I go snooping on his property taking pics. Cheers, John.