I don't think wood running boards were ever -specifically- banned.
All running boards on new house cars ended in 1966 and were eventually
mandated to be removed from all cars that did not require roof access
(like cars with roof hatches). The most recent photo I have view of a car
with a wood running board is a 1974 shot of NP 27306, built by ACF in 1941.
The car was repainted in NP's billboard paint with the 96" herald but the
wood running board remained in place!

Tim O'Connor

Morning All:

I am looking for a photo of the "B" end of the Northern Pacific 1000 series boxcars. I hope someone will be able to
help.

Thanks:

Bill Pardie

Allen Rueter wrote:  You might find this Bureau of Mines /Minerals yearbook 1950 interesting.

http://digicoll.library.wisc.edu/cgi-bin/EcoNatRes/EcoNatRes-idx?type=div&did=EcoNatRes.MinYB1950.WYoung&isize=XL

If one explores the "Sections" or "Contents" there is information on other minerals many still shipped by rail in 1950: e.g. cement, helium, carbon black, among others. All section are downloadable PDFs.

Bob Witt

I am not sure of the date, but I believe sometime after the cut-off date for this Group.

I have many photos from the 1960s of box cars still with wood running boards and some had been recently shopped.

Bob Witt

I was gonna say, 75% off is a smaller discount that I've seen
on many Branchline kits... I've seen $10 passenger car kits many
times over the past 5 years, including at the Amherst/Springfield
show last month.

Tim O'Connor

Thanks, Dennis. I have a ’22 CBC, but it’s a little delicate and I’ve never wandered through the roof section. I’ll have to check that out.



Schuyler



From: STMFC@yahoogroups.com [mailto:STMFC@yahoogroups.com]
Sent: Tuesday, February 28, 2017 11:21 AM
To: STMFC@yahoogroups.com
Subject: RE: [STMFC] Really interesting freight car photos today









---In STMFC@yahoogroups.com, <schuyler.larrabee@...> wrote :

Thanks, Dennis, I see what you are talking about. Always glad to be corrected when I screw up.

Were the drain grooves in the center of the boards? Seems unlikely that the roof would be made with chamfered boards, making the grooves where the joint is. One groove per board, or multiple?

Schuyler

=============

Well, this took some time. We had some discussion about double board roofs some time ago, and as I recall Jack Mullens posted a link to a diagram of the construction used by the Milwaukee Road. Rather than search for that, I thought I'd use the time to see if I could find an applicable MCB/ARA standard, or Recommended Practice. The ARA adopted standard lumber sections to be used in carbuilding in 1914, revised in 1920. The sections are illustrated in the 1922 CBC. I could not find illustrations from earlier, so can't say what was revised. As of 1920, the standard for "roofing and lining" was 1x4 or 1x6 boards, dressed 13/16" thick with tongue and groove edges, either 3-1/4" or 5-1/4" face. These did not have V grooves. This is what we are seeing on the left side of the roof in the photo.

The double board roof material was harder to track down, as it was apparently never made to any standard. However, illustrations appear in both the 1879 and 1895 Car Builder's Dictionary, both available on-line. Here is a link to the 1895 CBD:

https://books.google.com/books?id=0UJttWHSwNYC <https://books.google.com/books?id=0UJttWHSwNYC&;pg=PP9#v=onepage&q&f=false> &pg=PP9#v=onepage&q&f=false

Unfortunately, There doesn't seem to be any way to link directly to the page. The illustration in question is Fig. 2379 on the bottom of page 205 of the file.

Briefly, the boards are square edge (no T&G) with a half round groove about 1" in from each edge. On the top layer these are intended to catch most (some) of the water sluicing across the roof, and channel it to the eave. The boards are laid up with a half board overlap, so what water seeps through the joint in the top layer ends up in the middle of the board below. As it spreads sideways, it comes to the half round grooves in the layer below, which channel it out to the eave, or so the theory goes.

Did it work? If it worked well, there never would have been a need to try to develop sheet metal coverings for freightcar roofs. But it did work well enough to be in common usage for three or four decades.

Dennis Storzek





[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Allen Reuter,

Thanks for the pointer to the Bureau Of Mines Yearbook for 1950. Great stuff!

- Jim B.

1910 and 1912 are also on google books
Howard Garner