1940s & 1950s: The Basic Boxcar ruled the rails?

Model Railroader Prototype information for the modeler
1

I’m pondering an HO layout set in the transition era as my first foray into something with real operation (using stuff gifted to us from others). One industry I’m thinking of is flour milling.

My understanding is that boxcars were used to haul grain originally; planks would be nailed inside across the door, to a certain distance from the top, and the grain would be dumped in. How was it removed?

The finished product (barrels or bags of flour) would of course be shipped out in boxcars, too.

Apart from tank cars and box cars, would I see any other types of freight cars in a midwestern railroad? How long would these box cars have been?

2

In the Midwest, you’d see every type of freight car.

40’ boxcars were of course the most common, hauling virtually everything. 50’ boxcars weren’t that common, and were generally reserved for automobile manufacturing service (Detriot IS in the Midwest…)

Gondolas were probably the seond most common. Gons hauled everything that boxcars did, if it didn’t need to be protected from the elements. There are a lot of steel mills in the Midwest, and they hauled finished product and scrap. And most roads outside of Appaliachia actually hauled more coal in gondolas than in hoppers. Gons would also be used to haul lumber and non-coal minerals.

Reefers were very common. 80% of the population of the USA lived east of the Mississippi, so all that California produce had to pass though the Midwest to get to the eastern seaboard. 95% of the meat industry was in the Midwest (Chicago, St Louis, Kansas City), and all those steaks and hotdogs were loaded in to meat reefers.

Also because of the meat industry, stock cars were relatively common, especially during the two big rushes (spring to pastures, fall to slaughter)

Because of the industrial base, flats would be fairly common, hauling finished machinery.

Hoppers were more common than you think. Besides hauling fuel to coal dealers, hoppers hauled a LOT of coal to electric generating stations; better than 60% of the electricity in the USA was generated in the Midwest (Ingall’s Illinois empire). And believe it or not, there’s more coal under Illinois than there is under West Virginia; several roads hauled billions of tons of coal out of Illinois, Indiana and Kentucky.

Tank cars hauled more than oil. Chemicals, food grade oils, paint, molasses.

Finally, you’d see a few twin bay covered hoppers, lugging concrete or other keep-dry minerals around. They were specialized service, so didn’t appear in large numbers, and only went to larger companies.

3

What orsonroy said is right on the money. I don’t have much to add to that as he covered it quite well. I will, however, give you a website that can help with photo documentation and so on. It’s;

http://www.steamfreightcars.com/index.html

Looking at these photo’s will help you in establishing the “feel” of your RR. Just pay attention to the dates on the photo’s as this site covers everything in the steam era.

4

As noted, your questions have been mostly answered, and very well at that. As for emptying grain from boxcars, a couple of guys with shovels would probably be the most likely solution. Nowadays, we tend to forget how many jobs that are now mechanized were once done by hand. The Canadian Pacific built, in the 1920s, 3500 single sheathed 40’ boxcars that were fitted with underfloor hoppers for handling grain.
Also, don’t forget that most homes, at least into the '50s, were heated with coal, so you can have an on-line destination for some of those hoppers.

Wayne

5

The door as you say could only be covered part-way, had to leave enough room for a spout to be put into the car to load the grain. Boxcars continued to be used for grain into the 70’s, but starting around the mid-50’s more and more grain was hauled by covered hoppers. BTW there were paper liners that could be put into the car to help keep the load clean, and removable “plugs” that could cover the door (rather than nailing in planks).

Of course, specialized boxcars with small doors for grain loading were built in the fifties and sixties.

6

You asked about the lengths of cars. I know that 65 foot drop end mill gons were being operated in the 1940’s. 50-foot flat cars were also fairly common. 50 foot box cars, known as ‘automobile’ cars, had double doors that slid in opposite directions to give an opening wide enough to drive a car aboard.

Shortly before covered grain hoppers became common, some genius invented a box car unloader that clamped the car wheels, then tilted and shook it to get the grain out. It was written up in Popular Mechanics, but probably never got past the prototype stage because hoppers were simpler to deal with.

7

I’m sure there were exceptions, but generally 40’ boxcars were used for grain/flour service. You might want to check out the 2006 “Model Railroad Planning” book from MR out now, has an article on Chuck Hitchcock’s grain facility c.1963.

8

Manual labor wasn’t the only way to unload grain from box cars.

http://www.straightinternational.com/History.htm

“Straight’s first application was on the Boxcar Unloader developed in the early 1950’s. One cylinder side tilted and end tilted a box car. The concept was simple but the cylinder had to carry both thrust and moment type loads. By the mid 1960’s, Straight had captured the market in the U.S. grain industry by offering Car Unloaders that could tilt, weigh and vibrate a car during unloading…The early 1980’s brought a decline in domestic sales. Grain exports declined and the US was overbuilt with grain handling facilities. The hopper car was hauling nearly all of the grain moving by rail and there was no longer a need for box car unloaders. Fortunately, Straight has exported products for many years and the export sales during the 1980’s were most timely.”

This link has a photo:

http://www.straightinternational.com/Railcar.htm

9

Grain movement kept some 40’ box cars in operation well into the 70s, at least on the BN. There was a branch out of Wenatchee that loaded some grain but the track couldn’t handle 100 ton capacity cars so some 40’ box car were kept arround as being cheaper than upgrading the track (now abandoned).

10

There were many, many variations on even the “basic” 40’ boxcar. Although I don’t know in what proportions you might see them, there were:

insulated boxcars
single sheath, double sheath, steel - all with a variety of different ends and roofs
double doors
end doors (for autos)
small end doors for loading long lumber
some boxcars even had drop floors (like some gondolas) for unloading bulk dry goods (like grain or salt)

Andrew

11

Box cars were the most common type car. The 1950 national car fleet (excluding privately-owned cars - principally refrigerator and tank cars) consisted of 36 percent box cars, 23 percent hopper cars, and 21 percent gondolas. Of course insividual railroads stock varied, reflecting the types of industries they served. Here are some examples:

RR Box Hopper Gondola
South Pac 57 3 20
Rock Is 66 3 18
D&RGW 37 1 48
Penn 33 34 29
Santa Fe 54 7 18