The 9000 series O&W box cars were near duplictaes of the Southern wood boxcars with Hutchins style ends and two horizontal straps on each car side running from the corner post to a point about 1/3 of the way to the door.

The 5000 series box cars had wood ends with a horizontal re-inforcing bar across the middle of the end. (FWIW, the remains of at least one of these cars along with a pair of steel baggage cars, a pair of steel RPO's and at least one caboose are rotting away in a scrap yard near Scraton PA, way beyond any hope of restoration).

I have several photos of both of these cars in MOW or company service in the 50's still in "interchange" paint & lettering, but seriously question whether many got off line by this date. For one thing, many of these cars never lost their arch bar trucks, and very few were well maintained. I do have a photo of 5191 in pretty fresh paint from 1954, but it was in company storage use on a work train from what I can tell.

The gons were 40' flats with wood sides along the lines of GRa's but with straight side sills. They had fairly prominent reinforcing gussets where the cross bearers of the under frame met the side sill. Some had drop ends and some fixed.

The flat was similar to the gons but without the side boards.

The hoppers were a mix of "pre-USRA", USRA and GLa styles. Many of the GLa's came from Westmoreland Coal second hand as far as we have been able to determine. Many if not all of the USRA cars were bought new in various groups between 1920 and 1926.

Despite what is listed in the ORER's as "available' for interchange, I still believe that by the 1950's the hoppers would have been the only cars to get off-line on a regular basis. The rest of the cars were well along in years, most were in serious need of repair and those that were in decent shape seem to have been scarfed up by the road for its own uses.

Bill Schneider
http://users.ntplx.net/~branch/