…Noted some “different” cars again this evening on a train entering Muncie on the Frankfort line. {NS}. Spliced in, somewhere roughly the middle of the train which had lots of tanks and grain cars…was about 5 or 6 box cars…Maybe 50’ in length…dark dull red / maroon color…They had some kind of side doors that seem to extend the length of the car and believe they had a type of trolley rail to support them at the top of the car…I also noted the top third of the wheels were covered by the body of the “box” car sides…{Or the doors}.
Any ideas…Dale, I’ll bet if anyone knows, you do…and Carl, believe he is into the different cars.
Again, reporting marks and numbers would help.
But from your description, Quentin, I’d say you saw a surprisingly large number (in one place) of all-door box cars, AAR Mechanical Designation LU. These, as we’ve found out, were basically bulkhead flat cars with roofs and walls made up of four doors, which could be opened to provide an opening of roughly half of the car’s length, at one end of the car or in the middle.
These cars were intended primarily for the transportation of plywood and lumber products, proividing a weatherproof ride and ease of unloading. Their use was superseded by wrapping the lumber that needed it (and shipping on Center-beam flat cars); plywood went back into more conventional cars with wider door openings. The cost of maintaining all of these doors and their tracks just wasn’t worth it.
By coincidence, we just delivered one of these cars–a NOKL 11000-series “Side-Slider”–to the Illinois Railway Museum. The Side-Slider was a variant of these cars that used two plug doors and two sliding doors per side.
(For posterity: Quentin’s query has prompted my 5000th post in response.)
Bravo, Carl. Here’s to your next 5,000!
…Carl, I forgot to mention the Marks which I remembered and intended to in first post: Yes, they were NOKL.
…Yes, congrats for adding them up…to 5000.
I regularly see this type of car (sometimes in blocks of 6 or more) around Eugene, OR. I think a local plant loads them with particle board. (Most of the ones I see have FURX marks.)
I also periodically see one at the Springfield Gunderson car repair facility to have a door put back on. [B)]