Hi Jerry;

I have the book, although not in front of me. Since nearly all the
photographs were taken of in-service cars in 1947 and 1948, the 1898
cars were in fact still in service at that time and are neither filler
nor misleading. The book includes statistical analysis of how the cars
fit into the total fleet and discussion of how they reflect the
development of car design up to that time. Think of the prototype
sections of Ted's "Essential Freight Cars" series combined into a
single volume (although that is NOT to imply that the book is any sort
of compilation of Ted's articles).

Pieter Roos