dinwitty -

Thanks for the photo. Appreciate that you are still digging into this.


Les

Same here, I am curious, too, not only as to the origin of the car, but who did the rebuilding, which isn't like anything else I've seen.

It's also interesting that Dinwitty found a double sheathed car with end braces and vertical truss rods as well. Normally such reinforcement was either totally exposed, as on the single-sheathed Erie car mentioned earlier, or was completely buried inside the sheathing on double sheathed cars.

You guys don't look at enough drawings / photos of old wood framed boxcars. During the last decade of the nineteenth century, it became very evident that the end was the most vulnerable part of the car, and one way to increase it's strength was to increase the cross section of the end posts, to the point where they protruded through the sheathing. The next move was to try to brace them mid span to the corners, which had the side for support. Both were very common on cars built during the first decade of the twentieth century. Not unusual at all.

None of this has really has anything to do with the oddball steel car we are discussing, other than it was a familiar, but antiquated method of construction by the time welding was applied to freightcars.

Someone mentioned Summer & Co. of Buffalo. The name is too common to effectively search, but rather than a salvage yard, given the ship breaking tie in mentioned, I would suspect they were a marine contractor doing some railroad work on the side, much as Manitowoc Shipbuilding and Siems-Stembel of St. Paul did occasional rebuilding work for the Soo Line.

Hi Les,

Here are some more details I have found about "Summer & Company."

There was indeed a salvage company by that name that scrapped rail equipment for a number of roads that served Buffalo including the NKP, PRR and LV. There's even a picture on the HVRM site of a NKP 0-6-0 that met it's fate at Summer & Co.: http://www.hoosiervalley.org/photos/historic-railroad-photos/page-12/

I also found evidence that the PRR Mechanical Dept. made use of used rolling stock parts sold by a "Summer & Co. "

Here'a a cool note. A "Summer & Co" bought at least one shortline to scrap, the Ohio & Morenci:

https://books.google.com/books?id=PuslAAAAMAAJ&pg=RA2-PA70&lpg=RA2-PA70&dq=%22Summer+%26+Co%22+%22salvage%22&source=bl&ots=haO-3D6D6s&sig=Q7MCQbAByB_-dYrip7J6p1iM0wc&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiJ7__R79zYAhUlhuAKHUQPC1kQ6AEILDAB#v=onepage&q=%22Summer%20%26%20Co%22%20%22salvage%22&f=false

I also found that a "Summer & Co" had notable lawsuits with the Erie and the C&O railroads over the rates charged for transport of iron and steel products.

I have an address for an office, 442 Ingham Ave. Lackawanna, N. Y. It is a mixed use neighborhood backing up to the rail yards that served Republic Steel.

And, of course, there are the previously mentioned connections to a "Summer & Company" of Buffalo as a maritime scrapper.

Is this all the same Summer & Company of Buffalo, NY? It might be, but I haven't made an indisputable connection.

What I do know is that at least one firm by that name was involved with salvage and the transportation of iron & steel, including doing business with Buffalo area railroads.

Rob

PS: Note, this all a bit loosey-goosey right now. All the facts stated above were found in various Boolean searches on Google and Bing. They should not be mistaken for thorough research.

FWIW the Ingham Street address looks plausible. Looking at USGS maps from the 1050's, what is now an empty field once held a balloon loop and several yard tracks - perfect for railroad salvage.

Ain't the Interwebs something?

Rob

Rob -

Thanks for all the research. Great stuff!

As for NKP 0-6-0 #17 eventually being scrapped at Summer & Company, I guess I should read the photo captions on the Hoosier Valley Railroad Museum website a little closer! Thanks for spotting that fact.


Les

Les,

Here is my hypothesis based on what has been shared so far:

1. Cars were built for the C&NW
2. Cars were likely rebuilt for use by the US Army. I am going with the theory this was done on the cheap for the Army during WWII.
3. After the war, the Army sold off the cars
4. Summer & Co of Lackawanna, NY bought the fleet for salvage
5. At least some of the cars were repaired and repainted by Summer & Co after 1950.
6. These were likely advertised for sale.
7. Desser Tire & Rubber bought a few - was there a US Army connection in the sale? Desser supplied aircraft tires to the AAF.
8. The Desser cars were shipped to LA with reporting marks DROX
9. Summer & Co sold other cars to clients in other regions
10. One of those wound up in Maumee

Here’s a coincidence. All three known cars are yellow. Was the Maumee car repainted in yellow by preservationists because there was an earlier coat of yellow found - a coat painted by Summer & Co similar to the Desser cars. The stencil tells us Summer & Co did paint them.

It’s just a hypothesis. Tear it apart.

Rob

Rob -

Tear it apart? Actually, I think it makes a great deal of sense!


Les

Some enthusiast had the car painted with the NKP logo, not accurate. Neither is the yellow. The hypothesis is a good bouncing point for further digs.

There is a book out there called "Chicago and North Western Final Freight Car Roster".

I ran into this

http://www.reocities.com/scotm2_50158/F ... ars_1.html

Some other digs will take more time.

When looking at some photos tonight, something else hit me. I saw photos of some wood sided refers that had somewhat similar vertical braces on their ends. Could the Maumee and OERM boxcars originally been wood refrigerator car that were converted to boxcars with new steel sides? Is that even a possibility?

Les

I happened to be out at OERM last week for a brief visit and saw the "other" car of this type at the museum. It seems to have a good deal more lettering remaining on it, including a car number which appears to date back to its Army days - 25828. This car was obviously lettered prominently for Desser Tire. Looking under the car, it did have CNW trucks and the brake diagram bolted to the car frame also had CNW cast into it (bottom left corner in the photo). The framing used Illinois steel; I'm not sure this is informative at all but might suggest the frame, at least, could have been built in the Midwest?

Frank -

Thanks for the photos, and the info. The brake diagram has a 12-10 number on it. Might this be the original built date of the car before rebuilding? December 1910? I don't know enough about what's on those brake diagram castings to know for sure what that 12-10 might indicate.

Also, maybe someone can figure out how to "rotate" your one photo for easier viewing.

Thanks again for the info and photos.

Les

Let's see if this works.

I think it is a December 1912 date. Reason: The brake cylinder looks like a K-series!

Well, it's as good an idea as anything else--and the cars, all of them, certainly seem to have C&NW origins.

Now, who did the rebuilding?

I'm inclined to think the US Army.

I donno, in the photo back on page two of this thread OERM 4 definitely has a AB reservoir. Anyway K equipment was legal for interchange into the fifties, and certainly still allowed for insular plant railroads even today.

Also, the way I read that 12 - 10 is the brake cylinder size, which is important to know, as that dictated the input force all those levers are sized to properly proportion.