Does anyone else here remember the all-door box cars, AAR Mechanical Designation LU?
They were fairly popular around the 1970s, but now are all but extinct. I remember them well, but my friend Sarah would appreciate seeing a picture of one, if anyone can either post one or point us to one.
At any rate, I have a couple of questions:
First, what were the floors of these cars like? Were they wooden, and did they have some sort of provision for anchoring the doors into position in the floor, by the edges?
The reason I was asking was that tonight we classified a welded-rail train–about 30 flat cars–with all of the cars numbered in the ADBF 300 series (ADBF is the Adrian & Blissfield Railroad, a line in Michigan that probably owns more cars than it has track to put them on). These cars looked like cut-down bulkhead flat cars to me. However, when looking at the Equipment Registers or UMLER, they show as being of AAR Mechanical Designation LU! And it occurred to me that an LU car, cut down to the floor, might look like a bulkhead flat car would have–after all, they had no solid walls, just doors along the sides.
Hence the second question–does anyone know whether the ADBF 300-series cars (32 of them, numbers 300-331) were converted from old LUs? I will try other sources for this information, and post it on this thread if I find anything out.
All-Door cars were, esentially, bulkhead flats with a roof and plug doors for sides. Most were owned by Evans Products of Corvallis, OR, and leased to various folks. It has been a very long time since I was last in one, but I seem to remember that the floors could be either wood decking or nailable steel. Most had tiedowns on the floor next to the door sill and these tended to be equipped with air bags. I only remember seeing these cars as CSD-145 Assigned Service - Specific shipper at a specific point.
Your thought that these cars you saw were rebuilt (cut down) LU’s probably is correct.
Thanks for the photo links–it’s pretty easy to see from some of the pictures that the all-door cars were built like bulkhead flat cars, with a roof and doors suspended from that roof.
And I just got confirmation–at least by one example–that the welded-rail cars are former LUs. And I suspect that, as a result of this contact, the mislabeling of these cars in UMLER and the Equipment Registers might soon be rectified. Although it feels good to have initiated the dissemination of the correct info, I feel a little bad about it, too–what an eye-opening find this was!
jhhtrainsplanes the things you miss when your young. Isn’t it a shame??
Ya know until yesterday I didn’t know what and LU or an all door box car was or what it was used for. But from reading the discription on the above McCloud River Railroad site I leanred that some of them were used to haul lumber instead of using the bulkhead flats. Interesting…
One thing I do have a question on though. Why would the January 2005 Equipment Register mess up and list those special cars for the ADBF from numbers 204-331 and 5210-30027 as LU cars when they aren’t??.
Those tie downs were not intended for lumber[:(]. What you saw were shackles intended for PEOPLE[:0].These cars were paid for by the NWO and were leased out for lumber service until they could take over and use them to haul prisoners to the death camps[B)][:(][:(!][xx(]!!!
The all-door boxcar was about 50’ long and were manufactured by the Thrall Car Company, I do not know their location, their primary mission seemed to be for loading long bundles of pipe, and seemed to also wind up in the lumber carriage, Boise Cascade used to have them and they were painted green with their logo on them, but that has been a fairly long time ago. As for recycling to other rail related uses uses, railroad companies have always seemed to be able to do that very well.
As stated above Evans Railcar Leasing had 285 all-door cars listed in the Jan 1981 ORER. Other Private Car companies with all-door cars were; North American Leasing with 659 (LUNX), and Transportation Corporation of America with 120 (HTCX) and 292 (TCAX)
Shortline Railroads with LUs listed in the 1-1981 ORER; Ashley, Drew and Northern had 70 all door cars; British Columbia Hydro had 60 all door cars; Columbia & Cowlitz Railway had 60 cars; Cooperstown and Charlotte Valley Railway had 92 cars; Duluth & Northeastern had 30 of the cars; Green Bay and Western Railroad had 6 of the cars; Fonda, Johnstown and Gloversville Railroad had 16; Louisiana Midland Railway had 102 of the cars; Minneapolis, Northfield and Southern Railway had 10 cars; Minnesota, Dakota & Western Railway had 51 of the cars; Oregon, Pacific and Eastern Railway had 5; Roscoe, Snyder and Pacific Railway had 15 cars and the Toledo, Peoria & Western Railroad had 5 cars.
Not listed with these cars as of 1-1981 were Weyerhaeuser and Northwestern Oklahoma Railway.
I would think modelers would enjoy modeling this type of car, especially those that consintrate on the late 70s and early 80s. Here is a photo of one on the hump at Hinkle, Ore taken July 1984 and it is a NOKL marked car:
From the number it would appear to have been a former Louisiana Midland Railway All-Door car No LOAM 11084. Also, the point of the photo was to catch the woman switchman working this humped train, so I didn’t catch the whole car. But it does show 4 of the doors.
Sarah, in about 2 or 3 years, hope to see some photos of you at work for CSX!
You beat me to it! I was looking for that answer. You have revealed too much information. Please report to the black van at the curb. You may bring 1 small bag with personal items.
Jim, the car you caught next to the lady pin-puller was an Evans-built “Side Slider”, a relatively rare variant of LU. The two doors on the outside were sliding doors; the two in the center were plug doors. On most LUs, all four doors on each side are plug doors. I’m sure the advantages of this design (chief among which must have been a lot less weight) were offset by disadvantages, or maybe LUs fell out of favor soon after this design was introduced.
And I’m holding out hopes that Sarah will come work for us!
Ok, when going through the LUs in the 1-1981 ORER, there were two or three different discriptions. So, later on today I’ll go back through and add car numbers and discription and build a list in this thread. The All-Door Thrall built car is one type as shown in the photo of the Bennet Lumber Car. Then the “side slider” was built by the Rail Division of Evans Products that also had a forest products division? I wonder what happened to Evans Products? Who bought them and so on.
