Gentle Forum Members,

This 40’ boxcar, painted as a PRR asset, is located at the Wellsboro & Corning Railroad, Wellsboro, PA. They used it as a storage van and in photo freights on their Tioga Central Railroad excursion operation.

They do not have accurate historic data on this car. Could any Forum Members lend some light on this car? They believe it was constructed in 1960. Does this look like an original PRR car or is it a “fantasy paint job?” Any data on class dimensions, weight would also be helpful.

The Railroad Museum of Long Island is investigating the purchase and move of this car to our Museum at Greenport for use as a freight exhibit/video theatre and storage space. Any information and guidance on this car is appreciated.





Thank you in advance for your help,
Don Fisher, President

Railroad Museum of Long Island

Looks like a PRR X54 insulated boxcar. The lettering is not exactly right and the number is bogus; the RRMPA has PRR 19103 correctly lettered in the shadow keystone scheme:

http://www.rrmuseumpa.org/about/roster/x54.shtml

Thank you CPR4000,

That led me to some good PRR tracings of the X54 and X54a boxcars. I've now got weights and dimensions.

Thank you,
Don

You might be able to find the original number stenciled somewhere on the car -- inside, perhaps over the doors, on the frame, or possibly the truck bolsters (assuming those are the original trucks). If the car wasn't sandblasted before repainting, the number might be visible under the current coat of paint. The car's educational value would be increased in a museum setting if its interior bulkheads, etc., are still in place.

CPR 4000

Scheduling an inspection visit for next week. I'll be looking for an original PRR number.

Thanks,
Don

Gentle Forum Members,

Inspection completed and more questions than answers!!

It appears the boxcar IS NOT of Pennsylvania heritage! Best knowledge of the folks on the ground is the car was built in September 1960 by Pacific Car and Foundry, Seattle Washington!! Following are photos of a "SERIAL NO. 2316" stencil on its frame and some livery painted on the car: "Builder Pacific Car & Foundry Lot 2316."

OK Forum Members . . . . . . . . what do we know about this car?? Anyone?

Know that I have sent a letter requesting any information available from the existing parent company PACCAR. The folks who today bring us Peterbuilt and Kenworth trucks!

Never knowing how much "historic" paperwork is saved from one corporate creation to another, anything in the Forum's knowledge base will be a valuable beginning. For the group I will share any new data I receive from PACCAR in this continuing topic thread.

Thanks all,
Don

It may well be one of the PC&F cars built for the Bangor and Aroostook. After BAR went belly up, these cars went all over the place. It surely looks like one.

Well, that's interesting! Northern Pacific and Western Fruit Express also had cars like these. Was there any foundry data cast onto the truck frames? Unfortunately I'm not having any luck finding prototype photos of these cars online. The NP cars were in the 98000 series, I think, and the Western Fruit Express (RBWX 60000 class) cars had the little stirrup step to the left of the main door, like this car has.

Thank you Rich for the shout out and the information you had. CPR4000, looking at the door frame leads me to believe it may be a Fruit Grower's car as the original paint is the classic Fruit Grower's Express yellow.



Don

BAR did not have cars like this. FGEX is more like it; many of the later FGEX plug door insulated boxcars (yellow with two horizontal black stripes) later carried "PC" reporting marks. Good chance this is one of them.

I have heard that PACCAR has no info on their railroad production from years ago. If you find out otherwise, please let us all know. RMNE has a BAR insulated boxcar that we'd like to get some prints of.

Howard P.

Hi Howard, I'll let you know what I hear!!

There's nothing like a good rolling-stock mystery.

I did a quick search of the 'Canadian' freight car site {which, despite the name, has a lot of US cars listed too} for 40' insulated boxcars and found these two possibilities: the Western Fruit Express also used yellow:

http://canadianfreightcargallery.ca/cgi-bin/image.pl?i=rbwx60267&o=wfex

Also interesting is this car. While not yellow, it seems to otherwise match the 'PRR' car, but note the NYC-style font for the dimensional data. It also, to my eyes, has the same roller bearing trucks. However, the ORER shows these COLX marks as belonging to North American Car and this car was still listed in the April 1976 ORER, so it was never a PC car.

http://canadianfreightcargallery.ca/cgi ... thamerican

Nick

One of the odd-ball things about the "PRR" car is that horizontal rivet strip/seam, right under the "PENNSYLVANIA" on the left side, and also on the right ("keystone") side.

The NYC-style lettering on the Colloid car is consistent with Merchants Despatch Transportation (MDT) and related companies (NRC Northern Refrigerator Car), etc. The Colloid car may simply have been repainted/serviced at an MDT facility, or it might even be a car leased from MDT.

These refrigerators and insulated boxcars seem to have gone into and out of lease to different private freight car operators during the late 50s to the 70s, making tracking down the origin of these cars a real challenge.

Howard P.

Good eye on the side rivet strip . . . the FGE and WFE cars don't have that . . . their side sills are different, too. Wish we had a good shot of the trucks so we could see the foundry marks.

I was wondering about the truck marking also, but they may not tell the tale. Switching from as-built integral journal box plain bearing trucks (having, with a 99.7% certainty, the original purchaser of the car marked on them) to latter-day roller-bearing trucks (possibly "reconditioned" aftermarket stock, with "whatever" markings) can throw off the detectives here.

Howard P.