Les,

C&NW had a series of 4o ton double sheathed USRA cars acquired during the period of gov't control during WWI. These are the specific cars the Youngstown Steel Door Co. car sides were designed for. The USRA 40 ton boxcars were some of the last wood frame cars built (substancial steel underframe, but all wood body) and with 25,000 identical cars built there was a ready market for improvements. The YSDCo. sides came completely fabricated with car posts with brackets attached to adapt them to the narrower USRA frames; the car was stripped of all wood, leaving only the frame and two ends and the side were spliced in between the ends. The roofs were then made of steel panels reclaimed fom the original cars.

The problem is, these re-builds were of riveted construction and used industry standard ends and roofs. They also retained their original fishbelly underframes. There seems to be zero connection between the cars in question and the C&NW rebuilding program, other than maybe the trucks. I might point out that as groups of cars were retired, sometimes the trucks were re-used, or sold on the secondary market.

The thing that is most noticeable about the mystery cars is the non standard roof construction. Most railroad shops were very familiar with the Standard Railway Equipment Co. panel roofs that became popular to the exclusion of all others. When Pullman-Standard developed their own roof panel after WWII, they copied the form and dimensions of the SRECo. product. Seeing something formed out of flat sheet is just, well, different.

I had to find a boxcar with similar design, note the ends.

This could be a wood boxcar with steel frame conversion. Conversions like this to give wood boxcars a longer life did happen. Tracing the origination is tough without some closeup looks and/or scraping paint off, but it will take more scrounging, for me checking the local Toledo area lines would be first, painting it Nickel Plate would be a clue for heritage checks, but it would not have to be a NKP car. Note the scanner plate....!

Yeah, as I said, during the period that CN car was built, wood ends with steel posts were common. Some of the CN cars were originally built for the Grand Trunk Railway (of Canada) a CN predecessor, and were originally built with only two end posts. Later built cars had four. I believe the fifth, centered post was added later and was a length of scrap rail, at least it was on some cars. Car ends take the worst beating of any part of a boxcar (from loads shifting into them during switching or humping) which was one of the reasons they were the first part that was changed to steel .

I'm afraid the NKP paint (its a pretty fanciful scheme) is simply because of local heritage, unrelated to the heritage of the car. Someone was nice enough to send me photos of the same car taken twenty or so years ago, and it was freight car red and lettered WABASH at that time.

The Maumee caboose sure looks like a B&O caboose.

Bob Albert, who took the first two photos in this thread, is a member (and past officer) of the Nickel Plate Road Historical Society, and he advised that the car is not of NKP heritage. Would like to see the photos of the car in WABASH paint Dennis, if you can somehow post them, but that may just be another case of the Maumee car being painted for a local railroad. The key still may be what is cast into the trucks of the car there at Maumee. Also, I wonder if anyone has checked the inside of any of these three cars, to see if there might be some lettering therein. One other possibility is a number and railroad reporting marks that might be on the underframe somewhere, although the years may have taken their toll on any lettering that might have been there at one time.

Les

She's actually C&O, a common wooden design on that road, with a number of examples preserved, including, if I recall correctly, two on the Cass Scenic Railroad.

This example at Maumee is missing its awnings over the windows, but is otherwise similar to this car on the Kokosing Gap Trail.

http://www.kokosinggaptrail.org/INTERES ... -11_98.jpg

J3a-614:

Thanks for posting the info and the photo of the C&O caboose located on the Kokosing Gap Trail. If NKP779 had checked the original entry that started this thread, the original C&O number was given along with the fact that the C&O later sold the caboose to the Toledo Terminal Railroad.

Les

This thread has me on quest to help. I have found the following so far. The station and equipment are on the grounds of the Wolcott Heritage Center https://sites.google.com/view/maumeevalleyhistoricalsociety/museum-complex/maumee-clover-leaf-depot
Perhaps a call or email to them to have the trucks looked at for info on the boxcar could be made.
I also found these pics online as well. http://www.west2k.com/ohpix/maumee.jpg
The caboose is marked TT RR and the boxcar is in a primer red paint. If you wish to zoom in on the photos, hold down the Ctrl key and use the wheel on your mouse to make larger.

Hope this little bit of info helps.
Rob

Stopped and looked at the car today. The truck frames all appear to say "C&NW" on them. The underframe was stenciled on both sides with "DROX 1414". There was also a stencil on both sides saying "Repaired and painted by Summer & Company, Buffalo NY" with a date of 6-19XX. I couldn't tell if the last 2 numbers were 50, 58, 60 or 68.

Others have probably tried already, but I checked a couple of lists of reporting marks, and there doesn't seem to be a DROX anywhere.

I do find DRCX, Dragon Cement, owned by Martin Marietta, but all the listings are covered hoppers in a 1970 ORER. Also DPCX.

And DRDX, John W. Grace Co. but all tankcars. Is it possible the mark isn't completely legible? There is also the possibility of a mark with a very short period of usage that doesn't show on anyone's list.

BnOTolSub -

Appreciate your stopping by to look at the car there in Maumee and for all of this great information. The DROX 1414 on the underframe is particularly helpful, even if the lettering might be a bit hard to read. It sure seems to indicate that the car was privately owned at one time. The C&NW on the truck frames seems to probably be the same as on the two cars out west, as OERM has both of them listed as C&NW (with a question mark) in an equipment list.

Les

Definately not original car shape. It sounds like a wood body metal frame car mod. cool, the dig moves on.

When this thread was first posted I recognized that Orange Empire had two of these cars. Here are photos of one of the cars. I took the images back in early December -- and then forgot about posting them.

Both cars came from an automotive tire dealer and before that they were owned by the US Army. One of the trucks under this car indicates that it was built for the C&NW.





We also obtained from the same location two other box cars that are ex-USA ex-D&RG cars. The D&RG information is from the brake lever plate on the underframes of those two cars.

Brian -

Thanks for the photos of the car that Orange Empire has stenciled as "OERM 4". The confirmation of the trucks as having C&NW cast into them, is also very welcome. Also interesting is the info stamped on the car body just above the truck which appears to read KTOD 5 21 59. It appears some of the lettering might be just outside of the photo to the left. Perhaps the letter RP in front of the K? Making this a Repack (RPK) location and date? I admit this is strictly speculation, and perhaps those letters do not exist. That date however, kind of "ties in" with the date on the Maumee car if the unclear last two digits on THAT car is 58, for 1958. The cars both perhaps sold second hand around that the late 50's. Again, speculation.

Would be interesting to know if the underframe of "OERM 4" also has some private car information on it, as the Maumee car does, and if so, what that identification might be. Neither J3a-614 or Dennis Storzek could quickly identify the DROX private car reporting marks, but some future digging might eventually yield some results. Hope springs eternal!

Les