Seeing the recent photo of the Hart convertible gondola built by a company called Rodger Ballast Company in Chicago, Illinois got me to thinking again about another old Chicago car builder. My grandfather worked for a firm called Ryan Car Company which was located in Hegwisch, Illinois, a neighborhood on the very far south side of Chicago. The company was started in the early 1900's and probably lasted until some time in the depression, although I have also seen a mid-1950's end date. The company at one time owned an 0-6-0 to switch its plant (it eventually went to a short line railroad out east) so apparently must have had a fairly substantial plant. There is some question as to whether Ryan Car built new cars, rebuilt old cars, or did both. My cousin recently sent me a photo of my grandfather at a company diner with quite a large number of officer/supervisor types in attendance. There is also a shot of him with a number of workers standing in front of a shop door with a track leading into the building which, unfortunately, had the door closed for the photo. I have no idea as to which railroads or private companies they might have sold cars to. My question is this; does any museum have an example of a Ryan Car in their collection? Thanks.

Les

The NorthWest Railway Museum at Snoqualmie Washington has a Northern Pacific stock car... from their web site (http://www.trainmuseum.org



By the way, if you get a chance to visit do... they have a wonderful depot museum, a railroad, a collection of locomotives, a really nice restoration shop, and a brand new display building / Car house... If we were giving awards for the railway museums, these guys would get the Most Improved Museum Award... they went from a railroad junk yard to wonderful and cherished museum in about 10 years... We should study them, and how they did this, and all try to follow their lead...

Randy

I did a few searches on Ryan Car Company, and this what I was able to find:

Last entry on the "R" section of a list provided by Mid-Continent, which gives the closing date as 1956:

http://www.midcontinent.org/rollingstoc ... list_R.htm

A reference to an apparent labor dispute, in which the management of Ryan Car Company is listed as a trusteeship; this suggests a bankruptcy and reorganization, and would explain an alternate "closure" date in the 1930s:

http://labor-relations-board.vlex.com/v ... o-39956863

Ryan Car Company is listed as among the firms alleged to be taking work from railroad shops in this article from 1921:

http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-fr ... 5F458285F9

Ryan is in the list of "alleged outside repair jobs" in the paragraph headed "Charges Letting Out of Repairs."

From what appears to be available, it looks like Ryan may have been more of a rebuilder, but there is a possibility there could have been new cars from there, perhaps as a "kit" made up from purchased components and some shop fabrication. Whether anything survives or not would still require some searching.

Randy -

Thanks much! I pulled up info on NP 83296 from the Northwest Railway Museum website and found their list of equipment showing that the car was built by Ryan Car. Sure is nice to know that there is at least one piece of equipment still around that was built by that company. There are a few other Northern Pacific stock cars still in existance. I wonder if any of those were also built by Ryan?

Les

The Northwest Railway Museum's Northern Pacific Ryan-built stock car is located in the exhibit building. It was used in the filming of a movie a few weeks ago and there are some recent photos on the Museum's blog: http://www.trainmuseum.blogspot.com/2012/05/studio-snoqualmie.html

The car is complete but could use some new paint. It was on exhibit in downtown Snoqualmie for a number of years before the Train Shed was completed. Now it is in a heated space and even more paint is dropping off as the wood slowly dries out. It's all good though - considering it was built in 1930, it is in awesome shape. Rich W. did a great job rehabilitating it some years ago proving that quality work stands the test of time, even when the object is stored outside.

--Richard

As Richard mentioned this car was restored in 1983 soon after the car arrived at the Northwest Railway Museum. All the lettering was traced as found on the car and one of the items was a logo for the Ryan Car Company. I have redrawn the logo and here it is:



It measures 4" tall and about 18" long.

Richard Wilkens

Richard -

Wow! Thanks very much! I pulled up a photo of NP stock car #83296 from the Northwest Railway Museum's website and I now see where the logo is on the car. Now I guess I'll have to see if I can make a full size copy of the Ryan logo so I can frame it and hang it on the wall.

Appreciate your adding this info to the thread.

Les

I found this today on the internet:

http://www.rrpicturearchives.net/showPi ... id=1264123

This photo of NP #83296 shows the Ryan Car Company logo on the car located between the built date and the car door. It's a bit difficult to see in this photo through the chain link fence, but can be discerned.

Les

This evening, I found some Northern Pacific car diagram sheets that the NPRHA had on their website and they showed two series of stock cars that had been built by Ryan Car, both in 1930. The two series were:

81750-81999

83250-83499

Now I can try to search to see if any of the other surviving NP stock cars were also built by Ryan Car. My guess is that the odds of another existing Ryan built NP car is slim as the majority of the railroads stock cars were built in their own shops in Como and Laurel, Montana along with those purchased from Whipple Car and General American Car. In addition there were a lot of cars leased from Mather Car. NP #83296 may indeed be the only Ryan Car still in existance.

Les

Old thread, but I was checking something else on the internet tonight and found a NPRHA list of freight cars owned by the Northern Pacific. In addition to the NP stock cars mentioned in this thread, it turns out that the Ryan Car Company built a number of other car types for the Northern Pacific:

GS Comp Gondolas in 1925; series numbers 54000-54799
GS Comp Gondolas in 1927; series numbers 53700-53999
Wood Chip cars in 1925; series numbers 118700-118739, 118740-118759 and 118800-118859

So it turns out that Ryan Car built a fair number of cars for the NP, but I would think that the chances of any of these other type of cars surviving, is extremely remote.


Les

LOL, I am from Illinois originally so I couldn't resist digging around. They built some flat cars for Nickel Plate (2700-2724):

http://www.alphabetroute.com/nkp/roster ... tClass.pdf

Also 200 hopper cars for the Litchfield & Madison:

https://www.newspapers.com/clip/1491383 ... nt_orders/

I saw several references to the company being in business 1906-1940, and one that said the Pressed Steel Car Co. was a successor, I know the latter had a plant in Hegwisch.

PMC -

Thanks very much for digging into this. Any info on Ryan Car is welcome, especially other new cars built.

The info on the Nickel Plate flat cars was extremely interesting. Also, perhaps a bit ironic! Back about 1998, we had heard that a company called ABB (possibly ABB/Westinghouse) was going to be closing their plant in Muncie, Indiana and that they had a lot of old flat cars on the property. I went down and visited the company and they told me that all of the flat cars were leased from Norfolk Southern. They used the cars to hold various large parts for electrical transformers that were being built until the entire transformer was finished. ABB was moving the Muncie operation "down south" (I forget exactly where) and that some of the "better" cars would be moved down to that plant for similar use. Norfolk Southern eventually told me that they would consider donating two old flats, so I went down there again, walked around the ABB properties and picked out two. Most of this equipment was still lettered for the NS predecessor railroads and I decided to try to get some NKP cars. (There was a beautiful Wabash flat there with roller bearings no less, but the guy at ABB said that that was one of the cars on which they were going to keep their NS lease.) One of the cars I chose was NKP 2733, which is very close to the Ryan Cars that you mentioned (NKP 2700-2724). Was a Ryan Car there at ABB? There might have been and if I had known that there was, I would have asked NS for it! Oh well!

Les

C&IW 41' gondola, page 19 of this IC roster, 1200-1299:

http://www.illinois-central.net/Rolling ... 20DGMS.pdf

PMC -

More great info. Thanks for that!

The Chicago & Illinois Western (C&IW) drop bottom (D.B.) gondolas built in 1929, appear to have had wood sides. It now looks like Ryan Car survived in part by building new composite wood/steel cars, although the flat cars built for the Nickel Plate in 1934 would have been steel, except for their wood decks.

Also, it appears that there were other Ryan cars built besides the forementioned C&IW 1200-1299 series gons. There are also some other D.B. gondolas, built in 1926 along with 100 hoppers built in that same year. Were those "hoppers" built for coal service with slanted sheets on the inside and were they too, composite wood/steel cars? Or might these hoppers have been gondolas with hopper type doors?

This new information is really welcomed!

Les

Les, missed those. Also, hopper cars, #209000-209999, page 87. I haven't had as much luck finding detailed rosters for other Chicago roads.