I can pretty much figure what the BLT date means BUT what are the updated dates referring to?
Is there a federal regulation as to having to be re-inspected etc and if so what basis is used
All my undecorated USRA Coal Hoppers came with BLT dates of 1918 or 1919
but some have the updated dates as 1937 some 1943 and one 1950
Is there a certain number of years after BLT that it must be done and if done several times I assume only the last is listed
Some of the dates may be when the railroad rebuilt the cars because of wear and some may be a result of FRA mandates, such as replacing friction bearings with roller bearings on the axles.
the two dates car inspectors paid particular attention to were the repack date and the cots or air date.
cots is clean, oil, test, and stencil and was usually stencilled on the air reservoir where it would be visable under the side of the car. the repack date was stencilled on the side of the car body. i don’t think cars under load were bad ordered for these reasons but would be shopped when made empty.
it’s been quite a while since i was around this so things may have changed.
grizlump
In the era I model, 1954, and for most of the 50 years before that is was common to see two dates on the car side itself.
The BLT date is just that, the orginal construction date.
Then there may or may not be a NEW date - this is the date of the last rebuild or major shoping of the car. The NEW date indicates that all appliances would be up to spec/requirements based on that date.
EDIT - see correction/addition below!
Sheldon
Is there a law that states when it has to be done
The BLT date is indeed the date the car was built. Sometimes instead you might see REBLT, but that is not too common and indicates a true rebuild, not just a shopping. I am not sure how much had to be updated to allow the REBLT date to supersede the original BLT, but it likely included upgrading of the frame itself.
I can’t recall exactly what the NEW date indicates. Cars when delivered from the manufacturer would have it, but it disappeared after a major shopping, replaced by the (usually) 2 letter alpha code identifying the car shop that did the work and the month and year.
US and Canadian regulations prescribed the maximum interval between repacking bearings and air brake maintenance, and the date of the most recent service for each was stencilled somewhere on the car. The service intervals were quite short, maybe as frequent as every 24 months. In the 1970s (I think) the consolidated stencil was introduced, which is that black rectangle containing all the critical dates. No longer did the car inspector have to hunt for the location of all the stencils on each car.
John
As mentioned, BLT is the date the car was built, but could also refer to the date that the car was rebuilt. This would occur only if there were structural alterations to the car’s frame. A car can be given new ends, sides, roof, trucks, whatever - it would be considered to be only re-furbished unless the frame is also involved. The car pictured below is a good example of this:
Note the built date, which, I was assured by the car’s owner, is correct:
However, this car is clearly built to the 1924 design (the ends are one of the giveaways) and could not have been built later than 1928, when the design was altered to employ Dreadnaught-style ends. I was attempting to build a model of the car in its earlier Pennsylvania RR paint scheme, but was at a loss as to what to use for a BLT date. With the car almost finished, I discovered that in 1934 it had been rebuilt by removing the original single wooden stringers (one per side) from the underframe, replacing them with two (per side) steel ones, resulting in the revised BLT date. Unfortunately, the model was too far along to be so altered. Since it was known that the car had been in express service, that was most likely the reason for the re-building, and the car still has its high-speed trucks with locking centre pins. Here she is in her post-July 1934 paint scheme, and re-numbered for express service. (The number was stencilled on the inside of the doors.)
NEW refers to the car’s LT.WT., the weight of the empty car when it was first built. Depending on the era and the type of car, it was required to be re-weighed at certain intervals. When this was done,
DoctorWayne is indeed correct about the NEW date and I relized after I had left the computer that I had gotten that backwards.
If the car has a NEW date, that indicates that the car has not been reweighed since building and is basicly still as it was built. Major work will require reweighing and and a change in weight markings and redating with a shop code as Wayne indicated.
This information was verified by NMRA data sheet D5e issued April 1956.
I knew the presence or lack of a NEW date related to reweighing/rebuilding, but memory got it backwards.
Sorry for any confusion.
Sheldon
Thanks guys for the informative discussion. You cleared up some questions I had and hadn’t asked yet.
Joe
Dates on a freight car?
I usually take mine to dinner and a movie!
(Sorry, couldn’t help myself!)
-George
i’ll bet you are easy to love when you pay.
grizlump