Thanks, Ed. I appreciate the explanations.
The outside-braced “panel” boxcars are among my favorites; primarily because of their visual interest. Makes me all the more glad that I’m modeling the 40s.
Tom
I too would like to add my thanks to Ed, and Rob for their explanations, especially Eds’ on the actual “stamped” panels. As an aircraft maintenance engineer who specialised in structural repairs I’m well aware of the different methods on how strength is added to light materials, it’s just that I can’t make the assumption if and how the same criteria applies to railroad freight cars.
Out of curiosity, on the subject of sides, do any of the US railroads have “Curtain side” freight cars?
http://nzrailwaysrollingstocklists.weebly.com/zhc—curtainside-of-2012.html
Thanks also to Tom for his interesting muse.
Cheers, the Bear.[:)]
I haven’t seen anything like those cars here.
I suspect many of our citizens would view them as “zip lok access” cars. Americans’ free enterprise tendencies can be pretty vigorous.
Ed
While not identical to the B&O cars, this experimental design by CPR predated them by, if I recall correctly, about 20 years:
Wayne
Wayne,
Do you know if any model of this car exist?
Tom,
Thank you for starting this very instructive thread.
A major difference between the two appears to be the CP design using separate roof panels, while B&O used a continuous sheet that bypassed this seam. I wonder if anyone with the B&O was aware of the older CP idea when the wagontop was developed?
IIRC the Milwaukee boxcars with horizontal ribs were built bythe Milwaukee Road in their own shops. Unlike a ‘normal’ steel boxcar, which had panels that were riveted together in vertical strips, they used horizontal sections that were welded together. It may be in large part just that doing it that way was what the Milwaukee shops were used to doing, since they had used the same technique in building “Hiawatha” passenger cars.
North American railroad barely had any all-door boxcars (either roll-up doors like the Southern version or sliding doors like the Thrall-Door and Evans Side-Slider ones), let alone curtain side ones (there were possibly some one-off curtain sides - there always seems to be some one-offs). Too bad, seems like a great idea, but I guess between widespread adoption of bulkhead & centerbeam flats with covered lading, and wide forklift friendly doors on conventional boxcars, the extra expense in door latching and roller hardware doomed them.
In fact, there’s not all that many curtain sided truck trailers in North America (there are some, but only a small percent of the fleet) - perhaps too labor intensive to tighten all those straps along the bottom edge of the side.
BTW, I see from the link the Kiwi graffiti artists have adapted to the new fabric on those rebuilt cargo wagons…
chutton01 Wrote:
In fact, there’s not all that many curtain sided truck trailers in North America (there are some, but only a small percent of the fleet) - perhaps too labor intensive to tighten all those straps along the bottom edge of the side.
You must not live in the PNW, or any where that lumber is transported much.
Maybe being a professional driver, I notice the equipment more than those in other occupations, but out west there is no shortage of curtain vans.
As to “Tightening all those straps” being too labor intensive, it is much FASTER, less labor intensive and MUCH SAFER, than climbing on top of the load to tarp it,and untarp, and roll up those tarps at the unload, which would be the alternative to just about any load, that is moving in a curtain van.
In regards to the security and pilferage problems with curtain van rail cars, the typical loads that would be carried in curtain sided cars, would be of the lower value(not that lumber is CHEAP) high volume cargoes, that wouldn’t be likely to be stolen. It is not IPADs, large screen TVs and cell phones that would be hauled in curtain sided cars, how often is steel stolen off of flatcars?
to steal a worthwhile amount of lumber, you would need at minimum a heavy pick up truck pulling a decent sized flatbed trailer, and least 2 and preferably 4 men to toss the lumber off the rail car, and load it on to the trailer, this would be time consuming HARD labor, something that most theifs avoid like the plague.
Lumber is not an easy to sell, high value commodity like electronics. You may find some unscrupulous builders that might bite, but it would be at a signifcantly reduced price, which takes you back to the High labor/low return that most theifs avoid at all cost.
Doug
more than 27 years, 2,500,000 miles moving America’s freight
Note I added a caveat - I said small percentage of the NA fleet. Quite true I do not live in the PNW, but instead on the opposite side of the country, where curtain sides are pretty uncommon even in the docks & transload areas of New York & New Jersey, while bog-standard dry-van trailers stretch as far as the eye can see.
Interesting to me, there seems to be a implicit rule that curtain side trailers are NOT to be considered dry vans, for example note this site from Utility Van makes a clear distinction between the two (why do I know about Utility trailers - because last fall I got a bunch of HO scale 53ft Utility dry-vans at the dollar store - pulled off the “Ice Road Truckers” stickers, and the models are actually pretty good - just needed the frame painted flat aluminum, the underside dark grey, and an overall coat of dull-cote)
As to lumber, since where I live (Long Island) lumber is mostly shipped uncovered on flatbeds to the Home Depots, Lowes, and other small lumberyard
There is a good discussion of the development of the rib sides by the Milwaukee Road in the recently published book, Hiawatha - Nothing Faster on Rails. The new set of Hiawatha cars built in 1936 used Cor-Ten steel and improved welding methods. Those cars had ribs, or corrugations (half round contour belts), above and below the side windows, and the ribs both covered the weld seams and added structural strength.
The Milwaukee Road’s experience with those cars convinced them that additional ribs were needed to adequately maintain the integrity of the car sides. Thus equipment built in 1937 had four horizontal ribs. The 1938 cars had 7 horizontal ribs, however two of those ribs between windows were purely cosmetic, so there were five “real” structural ribs. The use of ribs continued in the 1942 built passenger cars. And as older lightweight cars were shopped they often but not always had ribs added.
The horizontal ribs on car sides were really the Milwaukee Road’s innovation and idea for structural stability but also for an interesting and unique decorative look on passenger cars. Presumably they were strictly structural on their freight cars and cabooses.
Of course horizontal stamped corrugations had been common on the steel ENDS of boxcars and other house cars from the early days of all-steel cars, with some flat slab-ended cars such as the PRR’s X29 as important exceptions. I have even seen a photo of an early steel boxcar where the ends were concentric circles of corrugations, like the bottom of an old frozen orange juice can!
I believe the Soviets copied the Milwaukee Road’s idea for horizontal ribs and I have also seem them on photos of older Chinese rail equipment although that might have been Soviet built or designed.
Dave Nelson
I’ve spent some more time studying the plans for the MILW 40’ box under duscussion. The plans, incidentally, appear to be for the final version of the car, as opposed to the one Exactrail did. They are in the 1953 Car Builders Cyclopedia.
One thing I noticed is that what I took for a rivet or a bolt (to attach the sheet) looks like, on closer examination, a very small rib. It’s not much taller than the thickness of the sheet metal. It doesn’t look to me to be big enough to add much rigidity to the sheet. It perhaps is there for assembly purposes.
So, on this further investigation, it appears that the side sheets were 13’-11" long, 19 1/2" wide (tall) and had a small horizontal rib maybe 1/8" high 1 3/4" down from the top, and a much larger one (the one we see) 1 3/4" up from the bottom. This one is about 3/4" high and 1 1/2 wide.
It’s interesting that the side sheets were .067" (1/16") thick. On a typical boxcar, they were .010". Also, the MILW car had 16 side posts, while an AAR had 10. Depending on how one counts. So it would appear that MILW wanted to use thinner side sheets, but felt compelled to close up the spacing between posts.
The sideposts on an AAR car are 42" apart. On the MILW car, they are 26". It appears that one could have made a boxcar in the AAR style with thinner side sheets and more posts.
It’s interesting that MILW chose to build the car sides out of sheet metal strips. Why not just put up panels like a regular boxcar? Perhaps it had something to do with the assembly process. Remember, the car was welded, not riveted.
Another reason to have that rib there could be to allow the sheet metal to expand during welding without warping the flat element of the side. Essentially making the rib a thermal expansion device.
It would be really neat to learn more about how
Are you sure about the side sheet thickness of a “typical” boxcar, Ed? 10-mil (0.01") is only 2-3 sheets of printer paper thick. Did you mean 0.100"?
Tom
Yes, Tom. It’s .10".
Thanks.
On the plus side, at least I know someone is reading what I wrote.
Ed
That hadn’t occurred to me Ed; I would have thought security might have tightened up sufficiently.
That said why not take the whole car; in the mid 70s we loaded a W class insulated 4 wheel wagon full to the brim with frozen carcases of pork to be delivered to a customer 350 miles up the line. It never arrived and about a month later the car was found, empty of course, on a seldom used siding 1000 miles away in the North Island!!![:O]
http://nzrailwaysrollingstocklists.weebly.com/w—insulated-4-wheel.html
Cheers, the Bear.
PS. I am reading.[8-|]
Not that I’m aware of, Guy. The CPR did numerous “experimental” cars, with only, at most, a few examples built of each. Another one was a Fowler Patent single sheathed boxcar with corrugated steel side panels instead of wooden planks for sheathing.
…
It’s difficult to know, Rob, but the B&O’s continuous sheet version was a major improvement over roof systems of that time, when leakage to the elements (especially after the cars were in use for a few years) was a major problem for many commodities. I think that CP’s version was more of an early foray into all-steel construction rather than having much to do with tight roofs.
The photo is from a book owned by a friend, and it dates from, I think, the early part of the second decade of the 20th century.
Wayne
Semi-related: what is on the inside of the waffles on the waffle boxcars? I know it some sort of “load restraint system,” but what does that actually mean?
Here’s an interior shot showing the waffles:
Notice the horizontal bars inside the waffles–suitable for straps and ropes.
Ed
That’s almost too simple an explanation!