If a standard flat car is about 9’ wide, then the boilers in the prototype photo are smaller boilers. They are more like 6’ wide.

J. Stephen Sandifer

Standard procedure at freight houses.

Claus

Thanks for this link but I think it may be too old for some members.

Box car 26519 was built by Wells & French in 1891 (26503-26753), while 26259 behind it (if that is the correct number) was built the same year by Missouri Car & Foundry (26003-26502). Both were 34’ cars, and I think the light panel at the top of the side doors announces that they were equipped with air brakes. Both cars would be placed in class XM-3 when the company introduced classes in 1910-11.

The Burlington Route herald on the side of 26259 has the initials “CB&QRR” underneath, a practice which disappeared about the end of the century. Other companies within the Burlington group used the same herald but with their own initials.

The car to the left beyond the gondola (listed as a “coal car” up to 1905) is a Chicago & Iowa box car probably built in about 1880, with an inside length of 27’ 5½”. The company was leased to the Burlington on 1 January 1892 but the equipment was no longer listed in ORER’s by March 1894, which may help date the photo. The cars were renumbered variously as CB&Q 9564-9958 and the last one of this group survived until 1912.

If anyone can more accurately date the end use of company initials under the Burlington Route herald, I would be grateful to hear from them.

Rupert Gamlen
Auckland NZ

There is an interesting feature about this.  Unlike box cars which had sliding doors, Reefers had double leaf swing doors needed to seal the car air tight.  That is why the doors were only 4’ wide. (well the SFRD were 5’) Any wider and they could not be loaded or unloaded on parallel tracks.   One of the great developments of WWII was the forklift truck.  It soon became the preferred way to unload box cars, but most forklifts would not fit though a 4’ door!   That’s why plug doors rapidly became standard on reefers after the war.

For the longest time no one made a 40’ plug door, iced reefer in HO.  So I kitbashed  them.  After I did about a dozen, Accurail came out with theirs – the story of my model RRing life.

Regards,

Andy Miller

Rumor is that it’s makeup – same stuff that is used in cosmetics.  What that stuff is, is an off-topic exercise for the reader 😊

Regards,

-Jeff

More likely C&IM gondolas that were akin to the VGN types.

Gary Laakso

Northwest of Mike Brock