Not preservation in the strict sense, more adaptive reuse. No COVID worries for passengers here. We don't know the full history of this car yet; it was in CSX MoW service as #940062 out of Willard, OH and retired likely in the late 1980s. I believe it was originally built for the C&O in 7/40 but so far I haven't been able to track down any specifics.

It has two, long, double-sided benches down down the middle, split in the center of the car. All that's left to do is to add gates to close off the access ways and to let the pressure treated lumber "breathe" a bit before we stain it later this year. Final color still to be determined. The car is a bit of a rough rider as you'd expect but we'll probably remove some springs in the trucks once our wrecker is running (we're getting there slowly) and we can lift the car.

This makes the second car refurbished this year. The rest of the summer's work will be devoted back to track rehab.

Wow, nice job.

I'll second the motion --- Nice job.

The Friends of the Stewartstown Railroad did something very similar with a Pennsylvania Railroad F30A flatcar, rebuilding it into an open air car for use on the Stewartstown lines. It's a popular car to ride in: https://stewartstownrailroadco.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/open-air-car.jpg

Although the idea behind the two open cars is the same, there is a difference in the way the cars are constructed. Both cars use the flat cars side pockets for the vertical supports. But the Orrville Railroad Historical Society's (ex-CSX) flat has the horizontal side lumber on the INSIDE of those vertical supports whereas the Stewartstown's ex-PRR F30A flat has the horizontal lumber on the OUTSIDE of the supports. The inside of the Stewartstown's car would seem to be roomier for patrons.

Both of the open cars made from flats at the Hoosier Valley Railroad Museum, NKP #1946 and MKT #13833 (see photos below), use the inside of the vertical supports. One other difference in the cars at HVRM is that entry is gained from stairs of the adjoining cars that the open cars are coupled to. BTW, the photo of NKP #1946 shows the car being used by Hoosier Valley members to clear protruding vegetation from the side of the right-of-way; those chain saws are NOT used when passengers are riding!

Les

We looked at how others converted their flats for inspiration. Where to run the horizontal planks and access were both topics of a lot of discussion. There are a lot of ways to crack those nuts depending on what you have to work with. Here’s our thought process on why we went this way in case anyone finds it useful:

We settled on running the horizontals inside for aesthetics knowingly giving up about 5” of toe room on either side. The passengers see a more finished look inside and it also exceeds Ohio Basic Building Code structural load requirements for mezzanine handrails/fall prevention. The entire structure is very solidly built. Even the roof is trussed and has proper purlins for the roofing span requirements.

We currently don’t have a passenger car with vestibules in service for easy access via the ends of the car (it’ll be running with cabooses), hence the access ways at the middle of the car. However, being a MoW flat, it also had stake pockets about 2’ in from the ends giving us not only convenient end platforms but good structural anchors to add access via the ends of the car. It was designed for that modification in the future.

Overall, we’re pretty happy how it turned out.

One great advantage is that you can take the train shed with you so you don't have to build one at each boarding platform. Nice work!