--- In STMFC@..., blindog@... wrote:

A friend wants to scratchbuild a model of LOP&G 601, a 40-foot boxcar that smells to me like it could a former Southern Rwy box... It shows a wood-bodied, double-sheathed box on a steel

fishbelly underframe...

Anyhow, it looks like the sides are made of 1x4 tongue & groove, but his question is were there standard lumber sizes to build the interior framing of wood boxcars?

Scott Chatfield

Hi Scott,

Your friend really needs a Car Builder's Cyc from the early part of the century for the construction details, one of the old Train Shed Cyclopedia series might do. The TSC series did parts of the 1919 Cyc, and another that had views of the USRA cars, which were double sheathed cars with fishbelly underframes.

As to lumber, the MCB, and later the ARA, had a series of standard sections for siding, sheathing, and flooring that are usually illustrated in the Cyc somewhere with detailed drawings. That's where you find out the the standard 5-1/4" siding had a center groove, a detail missed by innumerable manufacturers over the years. I just don't remember if the drawings are in any of the TSC series; they are in the Kalmbach reprint of the 1940 for sure.

Dennis