With Todd having raised questions
about the Santa Fe's 50 ft. Auto/Furniture cars I'd
like to raise some
further questions. When I was in high
school I used to keep a record of the reporting marks
and car numbers
of none home road cars I saw at various
points within New England and now wish they had been
saved. The
specific reason for this today is that
I do not remember seeing that many 50 ft.cars of any
type in Northern
New England. Logically it would seem
that automobiles being delivered to dealerships in
smaller towns in the
region could have come in either 40 or
50 Auto cars. That said it would also seem that the 50
ft. auto cars
used wo;d have been from roads like the
GTW, NYC, Erie and possibly a few LV cars. Did the PM,
DT&I,
AA or Wabash even roster such cars? The
PM had some 50 ft. cars but they were largeky
restricted for
the PM"s Canadian lines having been
constructed in Canada.The DT&I had over 200 50 ft.
auto cars some
of which were set up to handle auto
parts and could have gone to the Ford Assembly plant
in Somerville or
the GMC plant in Framingham, MA but I
don't know that for certain. I have fnd n record for
the AA having any
50 ft. box cars while the Wabash had
some 150 auto cars or 50 ft. in length 25 of which
were even equipped
with end doors but Wabash cars in my
experience were a rare car in Northern New England.
Can anyone
speak definitively about this? If cars
from other roads of this specific design were to be
found in the region
what is a likely cargo for them? I
realize there were some 50 ft. cars of lumber received
from the Pacific
Northwest but the only 50 ft. cars I
remember in this service were No. Pac. cars purchased
2nd hand of the
Pennsy's round roof variety, the last
such car I saw having been in Arlington, Mass. in
1972, 25 years after the
period I model. It would seem that Sou.
Pac. or UP cars of this type might be a possibility
with lumber out of
Oregon but I can't think what a Santa
Fe car, for example, might have carried. Who might
have some thoughts
for loads in cars of this type from
Western roads?
My est, Don Valentine
