I doubt these cars were legal for interchange.The AAR had long had a requirement for minimum strength in center sills that I doubt these cars met.

What do you mean by knock down cars. The cars that I have seen that looks like the pictures have a fairly strong frame and do not look like they wold knock down easily. It has been a while since I have seen the ones I am thinking about.

Hi,

Knock down cars for the MRS meant that you had a floor, two sides, two ends, a roof and two trucks. This panels or modules could be bolted together once at the foreign shore. Shipping in a stacked kit form allowed the US manufacturing their best run at high standard strong construction of the modules, the ocean freighters had a limited cargo hold volume so the knock down kits would not take so much space.

Another application sort of like this is the modular home industry (not mobile home or trailer home).

Just lift the few big modules up and place them and then bolt them together. Then the next modules until the box car or gondola is complete.

Doug vV

'Knock-Down' came from the fact that they could be shipped to the theater of operations as a stack of flat components rather rather than as an assembled car, allowing many more cars to stowed in the same amount of space. There was a basic flatcar to which could be added low or medium height sides for a gondola, or high sides with doors and a roof for a boxcar. For shipment the sides and roofs as appropriate would be stacked like so many sheets of plywood.
GME

I checked and found that we use one of the so called "knock down cars" as a car to haul our generator for the dinner train on the Abilene & Smoky Valley Railroad at Abilene KS. And another car for use as a flat car with our crane. Both of these cars came from near Kansas City. They were both box cars when we moved them in. I do not know where they came from before that. But one is used on a regular basis. Are there any serial numbers stamped into the metal any where that I could look for?
Right now we are busy try to move a Alco S-4 to our site so any donations would help. our web site is asvrr.org/

I would guess that the two cars on the A&SVRR came from the Sunflower Army Ammuntion plat at the same time as the one I am working on was moved to Atchison, Kansas.

I have not found and markings on the one in Atchison, save for a metal tag with the number "506" stamped on it that is wired to one of the stake pockets on the side of the car. As best I can tell, the cars at the Sunflower plant were just painted yellow with no other markings.

If anyone is interested in more details on the Atchison car, I have posted them on http://www.myviewfromthecaboose.com under the "restoration Projects" section.

Jason Midyette

http://www.myviewfromthecaboose.com

I believe Jason was right about the cars at Abilene. The cars have same dates as he was talking about on their car. They have two cars. Both came from near Kansas City which would make it near the the ammunition plant. Check the web site that Jason refered to. It gives a good history of the knock down cars.
Thanks Jason for the history of our cars.

Old topic but figured I'd add some more info....

On the Old Colony & Newport on Aquidneck Island we have a knockdown flatcar from the Newport, RI navy base. It was pulled out of the base in the early 80's and is used as a work car hauling materials such as rail. It was repainted and received a new deck in 2014. Currently it is loaded with rail while a section of track is being rebuilt.

There are two more "knock down" flats in Davisville, RI on the Seaview Railroad. Both are stored with the possibility that they could be brought back into captive service as company cars or for non-interchange "short-haul" moves on the Seaview. Both are painted yellow with a good amount of rust from disuse, the OCN flat looked like this when it was first found on the base in Newport.

Mike