Friends,

Ed Bommer said (in part):

"The Duryea design reduced much of the stress from rough handling on the car body and its framing by isolating and spring-loading the center sill. A major problem with it was the need for special tooling and skills to repair it, for which not all railroads were equipped to handle. As Duryea under fames aged, increasing maintenance and repair work was required. They were banned from interchange service in the 1960's."

Banning Duryea underframes must have put a big dent in the fleets of some railroads and some private owners, probably hastening the end of older cars. Nearly all the D&RGW's 40' steel boxcars, for example, were Duryea-equipped, and some survived in MW service into the UP-era. The ATSF was also a big Duryea user, and there were a lot of Duryea-equipped URTX refrigerator cars. OTOH, the Western Maryland had numerous Duryea-equipped cabooses which survived until the end of caboose operations in the 1980s under the Chessie System. A few still survive at museums or for non-railroad uses, including one still in Staunton, Virginia which I was able to crawl under to shoot pictures of the underframe (when I was much younger and more agile!).

Yours Aye,

Garth Groff  🦆

Attachments:

• WESTERN MARYLAND CABOOSE 901882, STAUNTON-HD1C.jpg