Recently I ran across a website that had a lot of photos of old freight cars. These were interesting as I recall seeing some of these when in regular service. It got me to wondering if some of these had examples preserved in museums, or elsewhere. I was particularly interested in three particular cars but rather than put all three on the same thread, I thought I would make three distinct threads.

The first car is the Wellsville, Addison & Galeton single sheathed (sometimes called outside braced) single door wood bodied box cars. These cars carried the railroads slogan "The Sole Leather Line" and the roads reporting marks WAG. I believe the cars were purchased used from some class 1 carrier. Are any of these old cars still in existance, and if so, where?

Thanks.

Les

Les,

The WAG cars were built for the Boston & Maine in 1929-30, to a basic ARA XM-1 design. About 1962-63, a group were sold to WAG. The B&M cars in revenue service were off the roster by 1970. The WAG cars were common enough in the east until 1972. I do not think any WAG cars are around today.

In the 1950s, some of these were sold to on-line B&M industrial customers. RMNE obtained a group in 1979 from Norton Abrasives of Worcester, MA, and we currently have three of the B&M XM-1 cars. Two were restored in the late 1980s (new sheathing, etc) and one was "fixed" up about 1982. All three are at our Thomaston, CT location, having moved by highway last spring from Chester, CT (VRR).

I'd post a photo if I could figure out how.

Howard P.

Howard -

I have that same problem!

Thanks for the info on the B&M cars.

Les

Last summer I was at the Pennsylvania State Archives at Harrisburg and found a general drawing photostat of the 1929 SS B&M cars ordered from the Standard Steel Car Company. Interesting thing was, I had a full-size copy of the original drawing with me from the IRM Pullman Library, as well as associated drawings including the doors. Contact me off-list if interested.
Ted Anderson
Pullman Library, Illinois Railway Museum

Didn't Bob Mohowski panael a room with boards from one of the WAG/B&M cars?

Rob

RYPN Interchange does not, and never has, hosted photos on our its own Web server. Thus, you can't upload a photo from your hard drive into a post to RYPN Interchange.

When a photo appears in a post it is becuase the phot has been uploaded to a photo hosting site or Web page somewhere else ont he Web, and the poster has included a URL link to it surrounded by <Img> tags.

So the way to do it us upload the photo to a photo hosting site like Flickr or its many competitors, and then include a link to the photo in the post at RyPN Interchange.

Yes. The WAG and Sole Leather Line lettering is intact.