Dennis,

Not to make a big issue of it, but all the references I've seen to the
ends on the PM cars with the vertical 8+8 ribbing called it a Vulcan end;
I've never seen any reference to vertically-placed Murphy ends. That there
were other vertically-ribbed ends besides Vulcan is quite likely - a CBC
(1926 I think?) has a drawing of an "Atlas" end with vertical ribs, though
it's quite different from the one on the PM cars (or on the WLE cars, or
on the NYC cars, for that matter) - this Atlas end has ribs of different
widths, narrow outboard and wider inboard. Maybe it's just my eyes playing
tricks, but the tapered bit on the ribs on the PM car seem a bit longer
than the tapered part on a car with a 7/8 horizontal panel (NdeM 60891 for
reference - first one I flipped open to in the 1932 ARA book).

Did car builders have a tendency to favour one supplier over another? Or
was the use of ends specified by the railway? Or did the builder get to
make some input on that decision? I ask because the PM cars in question
were built by Western Steel Car & Foundry (the very similar PM cars of
86000 series with 4-panel Hutchins ends were built by Pressed Steel Car
Co.), maybe that might shed light on who made the ends for the cars in
question, which may lead towards an answer to our initial question...

Frank Valoczy
Vancouver, BC

soolinehistory wrote: