I am involved in a preservation project… restoring several 19th century wooden railroad cars… for occasional operation on a “preserved” railroad (under limited regulatory regulation) I am being a bit vague about the project… please get over it… I need to be vague…

The project is expecting state grants for the project… those grant require the project to comply with the Secretary of the Interior standards for historic preservation. This is a hard requirement…

As a result I (and other team members) have been talking to people who are restoring wooden cars… I am finding a wide variety of restoration styles…

Our team members generally rebuild in kind with wood as close as possible to the original… following the original wall framing styles… mostly for limited operation or museum display…

These cars are expected to occasionally operate… We expect to restore the cars, using as much original material as possible, and a bit of steel to reinforce the underframes and draft gear. We are concerned about the weight of the added steel… we are generally following the railroad’s practice for added steel… We are fighting a battle over more or less steel…

We have had conversations with a group which uses plywood against the car frame then siding over… creating a “unibody” system. They are following Strasburg Railroad practice…. Something I like for a tourist railroad but question it as a preservation strategy…

I would like do start a discussion of restoration standards and practices for wooden railroad passenger cars used in limited operation.

Does anyone have a wooden car restoration strategy they would like to share..

Randy

Brother Hees,

I cannot claim to be an expert on the application of the Sec. of Int. Standards to rail equipment, but from what I've seen in the world of architecture, there is a great deal of leeway for modifications when they are deemed necessary for safety, energy efficiency, and the ongoing survival of the property. Significant modifications might include insulated windows, structural upgrades, new infrastructure, etc. These changes are allowed because most listed buildings are still expected to be economically productive and they can be made with little impact on appearance. There are very few places where buildings can be "stuffed and mounted" as some disparagingly refer to rail equipment that is "conserved" instead of restored.

If these wooden rail cars are still expected to be productive (i.e. operate), I'd imagine the limitations are less about the Standards, and more about curatorial decisions, and a consideration of the track record of similar changes. Once again, speaking from the standpoint of architecture, there have been a number of failures that have resulted from attempts to improve things that have resulted in unforeseen circumstances.

Failures have lead to changes in the practices for dealing with water and moisture, and I don't see many of these hard-learned lessons adapted in the world of rail car restoration. The chief idea is to assume water is going to get past the siding (or come from the interior in vapor form) and have a strategy for it to drain and dry out. This usually means ventilation, air gaps, weep holes, and water/moisture barriers under the skin.

Good luck,

Other Other Randy.

Greetings:
A couple of comments from someone who has never restored a wooden passenger car (although I have done a wooden tender frame, a couple of wooden cabs, a couple of wood cabooses and helped with a wood snowplow).

The Association of Tourist Railways and Museums has an excellent publication: "Recommended Practices for Railway Museums" which is a standard for our "Industry" and, if followed, will result in a museum quality restoration.

Reading between the lines in (first) Randy's post, it sounds like there might be a frustrated car designer out there. Trust me, I have heard all too often that "if we do it my way, we'll never have to do it again" or "those guys made a mistake when they designed that side sill, it should have been...", "or they didn't have modern materials then, we can make this a lot better now", etc.

The question often comes down to: are you doing a restoration or rebuilding?

If you are doing a restoration, in my opinion, your course set: follow established recommended practices.

If you are rebuilding, then change the method of attaching siding, or use plastic siding and for sure beef up that underframe because the service that car will see at your operation is far more severe than anything the car saw when it was out in the real world operating (sarcasm intended).

However there are areas where compromise is necessary. Thinking of siding for instance. Most car builders used poplar, but all the four foot diameter poplar trees are long gone, all that is available comes from young trees that are all sap wood. From what I have seen, the heart wood (found in old growth trees) was quite rot resistant, but trust me, the poplar available today rots quickly even after being coated with "woodlife" or such.

These days, I use Southern Yellow Pine in place of poplar. Once, I was bemoaning the use of it and one of the guys said: "after its painted, no one will know". But we will know, and lets face it, a lot of what we do is for ourselves and for those of our ilk who we will hand this equipment off to, not for the public.

Perhaps I'll have more thoughts later, right now I have a roof (steel) to deal with.

I'm certain that this will be a great discussion!

J.David

Selections of wood used to replace old materials, mentioned in J. David's post, is significant. One possible option, that may exist for a few years to come, is to recycle old wood from barns and houses being demolished in the way of corporate/residential sprawl. A good preservationist needs to understand the types of wood. I have seen a wood dictionary made of several types of small boards.

However my main thought is an extension of the statement by R.R.R.:

Aside from the plywood under-sheathing mentioned in the first post, reassembling a wooden car by pre-painting all the wood parts, and painting it on all possible sides, is in my mind an error which is based upon years of experience restoring steel bodied cars. Wood, especially green or unseasoned wood, needs to be allowed to weep out moisture. If one side of the wood is located within the inside of the structure, in my mind it is better off being bare. I have actually seen a completed car showing signs of serious rot within 10 years of a restoration due to full board painting.

Wood bodied passenger and freight cars are the most endangered equipment in the US, if not given indoor storage. I hope this thread will build into an online resource for people doing it. The article(s) written by Glenn Guerra in L&RP would be a good start.
O. Anderson

The Association of Tourist Railways (TRAINS) also had a 2 volume set of books that they reproduced on the construction and repair of passenger equipment from the late 1800s and early 1900s that was available several. These showed construction, materials used, how to reset the trucks, etc. Yellow pine is a rough wood to have the paint adhere to for a long period of time. There was also a booklet that had reproduced the original paint chips. Poplar was the wood of choice and can still be procured from a mill cut to size.

The Delaware Historical Society is in the process of restoring a Jackson & Sharp all wood 1889 First Class Coach #102 originally made for the Quebec Montmorency & Charlevoix Railway that became the Quebec Railway Light & Power Railway. They would be a good contact point.

There is another group that has a companion car to that from the same order that had restoration started and is available. You can contact me for further information on it.

Fred

The issue of getting large, clear, slow-grown boards of many species is getting worse all the time. I had not realized that large heartwood yellow-poplar is getting scarce, thanks for the warning.

The Emerald ash borer is also a cause for concern; ash is a great wood for car construction.

Re-sawing large used timbers is a good solution where possible.

If a restoration requires changing lumber species because of availability or budget constraints, document the change and the reason for it in a permanent record. Future generations should understand history and why the action was necessary.

The salvation for wooden railway cars, original or restored, is properly housing them. The rate of change of the temperature and humidity must be controlled. I believe that proper housing of the car is far more important that if a car operates. If the car does operate, it should only be out in the weather when conditions are mild. No operation in weather extremes or rain.

As Al indicated, recycled wood is the best option as replacement material. Not only will it have the properties of the older wood, but it will be fully seasoned. The biggest problem I see with woodenly car restorations is the wood has not been properly dried. Wood has to dry slowly. The rule I always tried to use was one year of drying for each inch of thickness. The wood has to be dried to the humidity where it is going to be worked and where the car is going to be displayed.

After properly dried wood is cut to final dimension, it should be fully primed. This is done so the wood does not absorb moisture on only one side, which will result in warping or cupping.

As far as modifications to the design, I believe for the most part, this completely misdirected. If you have a car that is 100 years old, chances are it was a pretty good design originally, evidenced by the fact that it still exist. Car construction evolved from carriage and boat building. There are hundreds of years of evolution in this field and the designs that still exist need little in the way of improvement. Wooden cars are flexible, that is why they give a smoother, quieter ride that steel cars. When a wall is sheeted with plywood it becomes ridged. This in turn increases the strain at other points on the car like the body bolster, which can result in needless failures.

The addition of steel may be required for repairs. If a tenon is rotted off, steel angles may be used to reinforced the joint. But if a car is to be rebuilt to the point that all the failures can be corrected, the addition of steel beyond what was originally used, is probably not appropriate. It is difficult to attach the steel to the wood so it will work in tandem with the wood. In original designs steel (wrought iron) was used mostly in tension as clamps. It was not used to reinforce wood in bending or tension.

The self imposed standard that I have used in the past is that if more that 50% of the visible surfaces, excluding paint and roof coverings, are new, the car is a replica. If a car is going to end up as a replica, the documentation of the original is the most important part of the project. The impact of future use of the car is not real important as it can always be rebuilt again. I have reviewed the Department of Interior restoration standards in the past and never felt they were appropriate to apply to a railway car.

.

Good Evening


I think the comments to date have been really good. But there are some considerations that haven't been spoken of. Some of us, have the luxury (if you will) of informing the the patrons that day there is no service due to the inclement weather, and others of us, have paying patrons whom expect to be transported, either back in time, or across town, or as simple as down the street.

Dave's comments that cars built 100 years ago, and have survived to date, probably do not need to be re engineered as they have lasted this long. Considering the service enviroment intended, some redesign could be considered.

In my experience (which can put me in both the operating camp 24/7 and the museum camp), usually the wooden cars that leak, the wood may swell up enough to stop the leaks, and I've yet to see metal preform this trick. Either way, (wood or metal) generally it is nice to see the car roof washed.

And nothing beats crawling under a car, and it happens to be in a puddle of water !

Kelley - great picture ! Love it. Nothing like the cold, snow and steam.


Cheers--Karl J.

Since the original posting, we have had a public conversation, but separately there have been private email conversations and more than a few phone calls….
My ongoing dilemma…

I and a team are trying to devise a plan to restore 4 wooden passenger cars, under Secretary of the Interior Standards, (and on another level, as historic museum pieces (following to some extent good museum practice) rather than 40 more seats on the train) for some level of regular operation on a historic/tourist railroad. This does not appear to be a common preservation model.

We have two masters… (which represent the two poles of the preservation/operation debate) a funding agency who will review this as a historic preservation project, vs. a railroad operating department… who has to live with what we build.

Historic preservation can call for preservation… of materials, of original design, and particularly preservation of contributing historic features. Luckily the Secretary of Interior of Interior’s standards do acknowledge the need for modern mechanical systems and structural reinforcement to make a building sustainable… short for how can you make enough to be able to put a new roof on the building in 20 years… Preservation calls for strict rules, planning documents and documentation.

Railroaders want to know they can hard couple… they don’t want to worry about pulling out a coupler… they generally don’t trust wood and love steel… Railroaders likely wear both belts and suspenders and like to dive in and fix things, then stand back and admire their work…

The railroad museum community has shown that we know how to restore a wooden passenger car to its glory... then put it in a glass house, never to turn a wheel or see a passenger... There are good examples at the California State Railroad Museum, at the Nevada State Railroad Museum and at many others (I like the Chapel Car project at the North West Railroad Museum, but note that the car does not have couplers so the “unknowing” can’t easily take it out on the railroad for a ride) Glen Guerra did a spectacular job on a car for Mid-Continent.

Alternately, Strasburg has shown us how to take a wooden car, and rebuild and upgrade it using modern materials for regular use on a tourist railroad... outside in the snow… (thanks for the photo, Kelly) The Strasburg “unibody” system takes a car down to the wall posts, stripping out any blocking and likely any wall truss, then glues and screws high grade plywood in the place of the siding, then puts thin siding over for appearance… they use modern rubber roof membranes in place of canvas or terne metal… If I was running a tourist railroad with wooden cars I would use it happily…

Others have variations on this model… Durango & Silverton has clad their cars in steel (in their defense, the D&RGW started the practice) and uses them every day for most of the year... White Pass stripped the truss rods and such and put their cars on a steel sub-frame... All of these use old, "historic" railroad cars in heavy service, but are hardly preservation...

The East Broad Top is using the Stasburg system on their current “restoration”… The EBT is probably not In a place where I think it approrpte… I think about EBT as a preserved historic railroad, but they are in crisis and probably are thinking about a car to rum, and not about good museum practice and historic preservation, but this concerns me on what on what I see as more a historic railroad than a tourist railroad, but Lynn and the Strasburg guys have done a great deal to keep the operation alive so I understand where they learn how and why they follow that model…

A few of us have some wooden cars, restored or preserved, that see very limited operation on a museum demonstration railroad... The streetcar guys probably have more wooden cars in operation than the railroad guys… I know of several museums (Orange Empire, Bay Area at Rio Vista, among railroad museums, the Nevada Northern) have continued to restore wooden cars but make efforts to run metal cars instead… Bay area is restoring a Portland (steel) car so they can take several wooden cars out of the regular rotation… Orange Empire is limiting the use of some of the LARy wood cars in favor of their metal LARy cars… Nevada Northern has some eastern commuter cars (Erie?) to use while the historic wooden train set sits inside in the RIP building…

(weird aside… The Baltimore Trolley Museum chooses to run their very old wooden car rather than their steel PCC cars… their line crosses a road to Baltimore road salt warehouse, and salt and rust is an issue… so for them, wood works…)

The continuing questions is… how many people have cars to run, and special cars that they sometimes run, and what do they do to the wooden cars to make them occasional runners… We are trying to find a middle ground... restored cars that will see moderate use... I am not sure that railroad preservation knows how to do this.

Bay Area Electric recently completed a significant restoration of Sacramento Northern 1005, a wooden car, but with some original steel in the under frame… This is a museum quality restoration… worthy of sitting in a glass building and never operating… That car is as good as new (it wasn’t before work started… it was complete, it ran, but it was sad) Wonderfully, It will see some operation… not regular operation but special “historic” operation… it may be the closest to what we expect for our train…. Some of Karl's Muni cars may follow this model closely... I love the comment about wood swelling and sealing...

But our train was built earlier with almost no steel… one of the cars has no iron carlines… as a result the roof is flattening… and the walls spreading… We will be adding iron carlines both to the car with none, and to the other cars as needed…
We are looking for strategies others have used to reinforce wooden cars which will be used…

I think we have mechanical systems under control… We are planning to use wood frame pedestal trucks (newly built, likely with steel in place of the iron clad wood frame) with the railroad’s standard solid bearings and wheel sets, KD brakes (the cars had separated brake systems with triple valves earlier than K) The railroad had a standard steel reinforced draft gear system it applied widely… we expect to use that… they reinforced under frames as the corners where the side sills met the end beams…

We don’t intend to add steel to the wall systems… we don’t think it is needed in a restored well maintained car. I am a proponent of tightening truss and tension walls… under the car… lateral truss rods, vertical tension rods… I have taken a 2” sag out of a passenger car on two occasions (different cars) by adjusting tension rods….) These rods had a purpose… they need to be kept properly tensioned…
We believe we have found documents calling for steel angle added to wood center sills… but have “experts” suggest that this relatively light angle iron doesn’t add much to the compression loads and would not come into play in tension… the specific concern was how you tie steel to wood to make them work together…

We are scared of the added weight of steel… we have documented similar cars who go from 35,000 lbs to 55,000 lbs due to steel reinforcement (not including steel center sills)

We are developing a guide to wood… documenting what wood was used… discussing options based on currently available wood… Douglas fir for yellow pine or white oak in frames… (I still like white oak for platform and draft sills, I am not ready to use glue lams... ) White oak for oak window sash (NOT red oak) Siding on the original cars was poplar, redwood, and some sort of pine/fir… current poplar is not historic poplar… redwood is not as good as it once was and is very expensive… a good pine or fir is probably fine considering it is painted… Interior wood will be specified as found… mostly golden oak… some Ash paneling, and mahogany moldings…

Roofs are a problem… all four cars had terne metal roofs… lead washed iron sheet… but the current material is stainless steel washed in lead and is thicker and the seams don’t lay down as well… The Strasburg rubber membrane has advantages… it is mostly waterproof… I still want a metal roof… I am wondering about the Strasburg membrane covered in sheet metal…

One theme common in the side conversations… The cars need a building where they can be out of the weather when not in use… As historic cars, this might be some sort of museum space… the traditional glass house (with UV film) … but with doors and track connected to the railroad…

Another commonly hear idea... save original material... I will play devil's advocate, and suggest that siding is disposable... as is wood window sash and the roof membrane... as disposable as paint... Beyond, is a molding is split and broken, why not replace it with a piece of the same kind of wood with the same finish...

Still looking for more techniques and strategies… more examples of how to keep a wooden car in service… more ideas to challenge practice, mine or others...

Randy

Randy,

You should take a look at the work Wes Swift has done on YV 330:

http://www.yv330.com/

I think he has had to address every item you mention, including the rubber roof.

More pix:

http://hickscarworks.blogspot.com/2010/ ... y-330.html
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=krIpCFwJcNM

First, it's the Baltimore Streetcar Museum, in recognition of the fact that "streetcar" was part of the locally used vernacular.

Second, while that may or may not have been true a while back, that's no longer the case today. When the collection was 100% Baltimore cars, there were only two "metal" cars in the fleet, Peter Witt 6119 and PCC 7407, and both were/are essentially "one of a kind". Now that the collection includes a beautifully restored Philadelphia PCC, a "spare parts" PCC overhead line car, and a waiting-to-resume-service Newark PCC, there are "expendable" metal cars in the fleet that aren't unique Baltimore artifacts, and the wear can be reduced on 7407 if they wish. And I've never heard the salt at the Ma & Pa roundhouse being considered as a factor in operations. (Now, the salt that the city's overloaded trucks spilled in their parking spaces to speed-bump sizes, that's another matter--anyone want to make a LOT of ice cream this summer? Come on down with a bucket and shovel--still hundreds of pounds left!)

And the BSM rosters several "very old wooden" cars, not just one, including recently newly restored Baltimore City Passenger Railway 417, a single-truck car which originally saw horse power.

(Disclaimer: My views are observations only, and do not reflect any official BSM policy if such even exists, save for the name correction.)

Anyone remember the cost? I'll send and email inquiry to try to get one, if they still have any.

Randy, lets us know when completed, I'd like a copy of this too.

You'll want to talk to some of the real experts on that topic, my understanding is it's not as simple as grab a wrench and turn.


Yeah, I have my doubts about steel "reinforcement". If you were doing outright replacement of a wood member with new steel weldment (whose bulk would be mostly air), you could certainly keep at the same weight, because steel is stronger than wood by a margin. However most steel "reinforcement" is a matter of slathering steel on the car. That's not making a structure, that's making two structures under the notion that each one's best properties will be brought out in a unified structure... but how does that work? Bolting? Bolts don't laminate. They just clamp, if the wood is still in compression. Otherwise they only pin.

The other thing is, this bric-a-brac steel has no proper engineering, no finite-element analysis, no hard look at how the steel-wood relationship will age, etc.


But composites are oh, so much more than that! And I think they are woefully under-used for this sort of thing.

If someone were to build a replica of the Spruce Goose, of course they'd build it composite because the original was composite. But instead of mainly birch, they would eval fiberglass, aramid, kevlar, carbon fiber or even nanotubes as possible intermediate layers.

Look at how they use carbon fiber in new construction. Look at how they use fiberglass around "cores" commonly of wood. Now look at how they use carbon fiber in new construction, particularly with vacuum forming. I see it as an opportunity to use obtainable wood, composited a variety of ways with a variety of materials, and "dial" any amount of strength and other properties that we want.

CB&Q cupola cabooses, built circa 1900 with fairly long all-wood bodies, were eventually retrofitted with very lightweight steel underframes made from steel channel etc. I doubt the underframe would take much push or pull, but it sure kept the carbody from sagging. These cabooses were in CB&Q / BN branch-line service through the 1970s. Quite a few survived to be preserved. A friend of mine has one in his front yard in Napa, CA.

- Doug Debs