Guys,
As long as we are kicking around lumber cars, and lumber yards I'd
like to relate a yard near my childhood home. Many model railroads probably
have a lumber yard as an industry, but the one near me on the PRR's West
Detroit branch line besides taking lots of cars of lumber also had contracts
to overhaul box cars. New linings, new floors. As such it was not an
uncommon sight for a string of ten or more identical box cars (often in
different lettering schemes) to roll into the yard at a time for the crews to
rebuild their interiors. I recall that the Reading had many of their 40' box
cars cycle through this lumber yard.
What does this type operation do to the "freight car distribution"
topic? Any freight car rebuilding or scrapping operation is an excuse to have
a ton of the same type cars from a given road appear on a railroad. Not
that I'd suggest you build a dozen box cars to then scrap them(?)
Rich Burg