Photo taken at Woodland, Maine paper mill a couple months ago. Maybe not so unusual, but interesting. Boxcars that have been cutting torch modified for pulpwood service?
Regards, Peter
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They donât appear to be boxcar conversions to me, but they are interesting. I wouldnât be shocked if they were still converted or modified somehow, though.
The main âtip offâ to me, suggesting they werenât boxcars to start with, is the complete lack of evidence of there having once been doors on the sides. Back before they lost the contract, the Bay Colony Railroad in Massachusetts used to haul garbage between transfer stations on Cape Cod and an incinerator at the SEMASS facility in the northeast corner of Rochester MA. They used a fleet of 50 foot boxcars that had been converted into trash gondolas.
When the cape rail operator changed in the 00âs, they opted to acquire a new fleet of rebuilt gons, and afaik the Bay Colony scrapped the obsoleted boxcar conversions.
-El
They must be for some local service; there are no markings that are required for interchange service
The way the uprights are attached to the sides appear to be where you would find stake pockets on a flatcar. A boxcar wouldnât have those.
Only in Maine lol.
Iâm no expert but I agree with your assessment.
Regards, Chris
Shame on me for not posting this photo earlier. Does seem to be a modified flat car. Would make for a cool scratch/kit bash project. Peter
I was going to say âconverted bulkhead flatsâ but the brace angle of the bulkhead ends does not appear right â compare the picture above that shows a typical bulkhead end.
100% those are ex-CN flatcars, converted to woodchip gondolas, then panels cut back out to convert them back to log flatcars on NBSR.
Last example doesnât appear to have ever been converted to a gondola, always a flatcar:
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Well, that neatly solves the mystery! Thank you for enlightening us all 
I kinda have to wonder what rolling stock can qualify for âmost number of times rebuilt into a different configurationâ, being heavily modified twice is already pretty impressive.
cv_acr,
Nice sleuthing. Always neat to see how prototype railroads improvise in adapting rolling stock to meet changing needs and how the changes can be represented thru modeling.
Btw, thanks again for your comprehensive lumber load tutorial and printable graphics, sure made my tiny bit of lumber industry modeling more enjoyable.
Regards, Peter
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I remember reading in the January 1990 issue of RailModel Journal about how Burlington Northern tried to convert a livestock car for pulpwood service by removing the roof. Unfortunately, it was awkward to load and unload so they only used it maybe once or twice and then gave up on that idea.
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Thatâs a load lol.
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