Last month, I was discussing this with someone else in preservation, who works on passenger cars, and the topic of whether there was a source for Budd and/or Pullman-Standard style stainless fluiting for passenger cars.

What brought the topic up is that BNSF has apparently applied P-S pattern fluting to some of the former Burlington Northern business car fleet, in order to give the cars a uniform appearance.

Does anyone know where they sourced this? Is Bombardier (the design sucessors to both P-S and Budd) capable of making this stuff?

"Does anyone know where they sourced this? Is Bombardier (the design sucessors to both P-S and Budd) capable of making this stuff?"

It is my understanding that Bombardier retained the old roll-forming dies for Budd fluting in the immediate years following their acquisition of rights to Budd Company Railway Division designs. The dies went to Canada but were eventually scrapped during one of the usual clean-up projects that surface from time to time with big companies.

Amtrak had runs of Budd and PS fluting made during the 1970's and 1980's that were used to repair their steam-heated cars and later the Heritage Fleet. I have a couple of leads on who their vendors might have been for this work but I have never been able to get confirmation.

The BNSF had at least one and possibly 2 runs of PS/ACF fluting (they are identical) made by an outfit in Canada called Roll Form Specialties or something similar (I have the exact name in a file but it's not handy at the moment). I recall the cost was spread out over maybe 10 cars worth or so, and also that the cost per car was maybe in the range of $15,000.00 to $20,000.00 per car, which is less than the cost of many paint jobs. Not bad, really, for brand-new fluting with zero rock dings. There's nothing quite like seeing a car with perfect, brand-new fluting, since we are so used to seeing cars with fluting that is really beat to death in many cases. I'm sure the BNSF folks in Topeka would be amenable to allowing their dies to be used for PV owners to have another run of PS/ACF fluting made if there was a demand.

A big challenge with having fluting made is that it is going to be roughly 85' long, and the only practical way to ship this stuff from the vendor to the destination is via a RR TTX flatcar. Also, minimum orders are required to keep the cost within reason. No doubt this same outfit could produce the various incarnations of Budd fluting as well, but the challenge would be getting enough car owners to pony up the cash in advance for 5 to 10 cars worth of fluting, and in the case of Budd fluting, the dies would presumably have to made, and there is a lot initial cost there to produce the dies. But it could be done, and as noted the cost per car would not necessarily be out of line.

Probably these guys?

http://www.rollformgroup.com/en/Pages/default.aspx

http://www.rollformgroup.com/en/Products/Pages/RailCar.aspx


Steve Hunter

During the Illinois Transit Assembly years out in E. St. Louis, Ben Butterworth showed me some dies he had for various Budd parts, and I was at least given the impression that one of them was for the roof or side fluting. It's been a long time since, and I don't know what might have happened, but that's the best clue I had. At that time, there were more Budd cars stored there than possibly any other place on the planet.