Thank you Tyrone, it is logical that the cars could have come from one of FGE's owners. The FEC cars were not pure USRA cars, as they were ventilated cars w/vents mounted in the ends, and had 7/7 Murphy ends. The ACL is a definate candidate and is the only FGE owner railroad they owned the USRA 40-ton DS'ed cars. I will look again at their numbers.

Bill Welch

--- In STMFC@..., "aaejj2j" <tyrone.johnsen@> wrote:

Bill:
I assume you considered the ACL and FEC USRA DS cars. I would think one possible source would be a FGE owner RR. I do not think the PRR or B&O had them. I do not think they would have come from the GN or CB&Q as both utilized theirs in the original form as you have stated.
I have wondered if the FGE car had the same height to eves as the original USRA car. If rather original USRA DS cars where used then I would consider the use of the original Andrews trucks as understandable.
Tyrone Johnsen
Rockford, IL

--- In STMFC@..., Bill Welch <fgexbill@> wrote:

On page 97 of "The Postwar Freight Car Fleet" there is a photo of
FGEX 10857--a rebuild--that was part of the FGEX 10850-10999 series
What fascinates and confounds me is understanding the heritage of
these cars. Although I have no proof, given their combination of
5/5/5 Murphy ends, fishbelly u/f, and Andrews trucks, I believe
these cars may have originally been USRA DS 40-ton boxcars. One
possible weak link in my speculation are the trucks, since obviously these were used under many cars unrelated to the USRA usage. However Andrews trucks were very rare for FGE. In fact this is only group I am aware of equipped with Andrews owned by FGE.> It would strengthen my argument if I could identify a plausible
Railroad source for these 140 rebuilds but in going through the
various articles and most recently the RP CYC articles and tables, I cannot seem to find a possible source. I have long thought the 5/5/5 Murphy end was unique to the USRA boxcars but maybe not, meaning perhaps other possible sources for these rebuilds.
I thought I would see if anyone on this list has a good scenario for the origins of these cars? Maybe I have overlooked an owner of USRA DS cars who disposed of 140 cars sometime in the early or mid 1930's.