I have a pair of Walthers Express Box Cars and have a couple of questions about them:
One has road number 71124 and prototype photos show it with a large wheel on the door. The Walthers model does not have a wheel - is this an error or were the cars modifed at some time? The other model of 71008 does have a wheel but I couldn’t locate a prototype photo.
Are these cars currently used? ie would it be appropriate to run at the rear of my Superliner train which is loosely based on the Empire Builder? Are they likely to be used in general freight trains?
The wheel is a mechanism to assist in opening the door (a few freight cars had similar mechanisms). T
They would not be used in general service they were only for Amtrak Express service which was only offered on Amtrak routes, the freight roads did not participate in those moves (and actually oppsed them, since it put Amtrak in competition for freight haulage).
Good link of photos but no #71008 but there is of #71088.
Quickly glancing at a number of photos, all the cars seem to have wheels on the door.
From a Britannica article citing Paul Dolkos in Model Railroader 09-2007 “Fig. 2 Amtrak head-end traffic. Amtrak No. 4, the eastward Southwest Chief, has both material-handling and baggage cars ahead of its Hi-Levels and Superliners at Lamy, N.M., in 1988. Robert F. Fine photo [Amtrak express boxcars are the opposite of head-end cars. Lacking headend-power cables to make connections from the locomotive, they must always be placed on the rear of a train. - Ed.] some served only by a lowly mixed train (one carrying both freight and passenger cars). These tributaries were linked to larger towns and small cities where through trains received and disgorged mail sacks and express shipments. These trains in turn ran into the big city terminals. So at almost any level, head-end traffic can be incorporated into model railroad operation.”
I don’t know about the wheels for the doors, but I work at the USPS. I have been told that those cars were used to move the mail between major metros, and we even have a special aluminum mail container that they call an OTR for Over The Road container that fit inside those cars. They were built of a dimension such that when the railcar was loaded they were a tight fit, and did not need to be secured. I have seen many OTRs with Amtrk Phili, Amtrak Chicago etc.
I also was told that thay had to quit using them as the truckers lobbied congress that the Govt run Amtrak was taking away their business.
I can not vouch for the accuracy of this, but to give you an idea of the possibility of this being true, I worked with a fellow who was a RPO clerk out of Chicago. I have only been with the USPS for 10 years, and in Tacoma. I have seen the cars in Photos, never in real life.
For a good modeler’s guide to these cars, see Cody Grivno’s article, “Amtrak’s mail and express fleet,” in the March 2003 Model Railroader, page 71. (Back issues are available on this Web site.) At that time these cars were commonly seen on many Amtrak trains, and Cody was able to photograph most of the cars shown in his article on the daily Empire Builder trains which pass near our offices. Shortly after Cody’s article appeared, however, there was a policy change and Amtrak stopped offering express and storage mail service on most of its routes.
These cars have been sold. Many now carry CMHX reporting marks with their former Amtrak numbers and now do travel in general freights. Some very similar, ex-AMTK cars have been modified as mechanical reefers and carry PBRX reporting marks and new numbers. If you want to runs these cars in general freights, these are a couple of options, although the latter will require kitbashing. Also, after Amtrak quit the freight business, I saw a few dozen (still with AMTK reporting marks) sitting in a UP yard on a line without Amtrak. So there were rare moves of them in general freight trains.
When ‘Express’ ‘Merchandise Service’ box cars were in fad, they were put towards the front of the livery cars, behind the motive power along with the ‘Baggage/Mail-Combo.,’ ‘Milk Reefer,’ ‘R.E.A.’ & ‘R.P.O.’ cars. Ralph