It looks like a forklift driver did not stop in time.
http://www.rrpicturearchives.net/showPicture.aspx?id=1395220
ericsp:
A forklift could be the culprit, but it could also be a cargo shift. Tall rollrs of paper ( in a Boxcar, are generally banded together to make a large heavy stack. not necessarily blocked individually; a certain short movement is not only expected, but allowed for so the paper roll will not be bruised).
Simiarrily, double stacked pallet loads are banded together to make a large block in each end of the car. While in many cases the middle of the car may be open. Every commodity is secured in different ways, usuallu after a shipper experiences damaged goods and seeks a better way to secure it.
A full load of loose lumber could have done it. A victim of a hard impact from switching or emergency brake application. [oops]
Bulged out car ends are not common, but not unheard of. Damaged in rough handling en route for any number of reasons.[2c]
I may be making some incorrect assumptions here. I assume it is more expensive to use a XL boxcar than a XM boxcar. If so, I assume that a company would order a XL boxcar so they could secure the load, which would make a load shift less probable.
Couple of points to make here, Eric:
Yes, it probably does cost more for a shipper to use an XL than an XM (that would seem logical, anyway–I really don’t know). But to use an XL car, you need to be able to put those loading bars from one side to the other, and when you’re loading those big rolls of paper vertically, as many as you can fit into the car, that’s practically impossible to do. You’re more likely to find metal or plastic straps, and inflatable dunnage toward the center of the car.
It took quite a bit of movement to bulge the end of the car like that. I doubt that a forklift could do that without causing severe damage to itself and its operator, if it could get up sufficient speed.
My friend Eric Neubauer calls this type of end a “terminating” end, because the strengthening corrugations come to an end before reaching the sides of the cars. This type of corrugation was distinctive to cars built by Pullman Standard (indeed, this car was built by Pullman Standard for an ancestor of the Seaboard System, most likely SCL). By the mid-1970s (earlier if you were a progressive railroad like the Southern), about the time Railbox cars came out, non-terminating ends came into use, where the corrugation of the ends was even from side to side, being welded into the corner posts of the cars. This made the ends much stronger, and one doesn’t see nearly as many ends damaged by load shifts any more.
Railroads tell paper companies and other shippers how to load their cars to prevent damag
Cshave,
Rail rates seldom discriminate based on car type at the level of detail involved in this case. If they did the railroad could get higher rate by providing one type and the customer would probably order the other to get a lower rate. All of which would create unnecessary friction.
Rates used to change based on minimum weight per car. Few if any of these exist. Most rates are flat per car and both the customer and the railroad figure to load as much as they can. I suspect some rates may be based on capacity of the car, 100 ton vs 110 ton grain or lumber cars for example.
The trend since 1980 has been to simplify the structure of the rates. A complicated structure certainly requires more clerks on both sides to keep it straight, and nobody wants to employ excess help anywhere.
Mac
Thanks for that, Mac!
This is not surprising. Shippers have always wanted the inside larger than the outside of containers from the beginning of trade and commerce. I once watched a forklift operator ram a load of computers to get the door closed on a 53 foot trailer. The driver was video taping it to cover his butt upon delivery. The dock foreman was telling him it’s alright. They do it all the time.
Pete