Brian, you cannot infer a car's point of origin from its current location.
The car could have been loaded in Minneapolis (another huge milling city)
and sent to San Diego. I have seen photos of many eastern box cars at the
grain port in Duluth/Superior. As Tim Gilbert has pointed out many times,
cars in the 1950's were routinely loaded and sent to destinations in total
disregard of the "rules". For all we know, the "RETURN TO" stencil may
just have been intended as advertising and nothing more. Until someone
comes up with an actual waybill for a carload of wheat flour shipped
3,000 miles I will remain highly skeptical of that distance. I accept it
could happen, but I just am not convinced it happened.

Tim, actually I have a Bob's photo of DL&W 55203, built 3-57 Magor CC, in San Diego at a bakery in April 1957 one month after building. The car is stenciled "RETURN TO BUFFALO FOR FLOUR LOADING." apparently the Buffalo flour cars did get around. Buffalo was the grain milling capital of the world. I admit I don't understand the economics of shipping wheat east by boat the flour west, but it did happen.

Brian, you cannot infer a car's point of origin from its current
location.
The car could have been loaded in Minneapolis (another huge milling
city)
and sent to San Diego. I have seen photos of many eastern box cars at
the
grain port in Duluth/Superior. As Tim Gilbert has pointed out many
times,
cars in the 1950's were routinely loaded and sent to destinations in
total
disregard of the "rules". For all we know, the "RETURN TO" stencil may
just have been intended as advertising and nothing more. Until someone
comes up with an actual waybill for a carload of wheat flour shipped
3,000 miles I will remain highly skeptical of that distance. I accept
it
could happen, but I just am not convinced it happened.

Tim and others interested,
In the "for what it's worth" category, I went through my Buffalo Creek
photos of PS-1s and AC&F-built AAR 40' box cars. Photo dates are
documented from early 1953 to the early 1960s with all but one being no
later than 1956. Locations of the photos are Fort Smith, San Francisco,
Philadelphia, New Haven, Kansas City, and St. Louis. An additional
quantity of photos from Bob Lorenz and Richard Burg collections, many
of them taken by Paul Dunn in Ohio, show a number of examples of BCK
box cars passing through that region. Regardless of where the cars
originated from or their destinations, these cars tended to get around
based on these examples.

OK Do they make this device to work with an I-Mac? Where can I find one.
Thank you

I've spotted yet another car I could use some help identifying. This is
taken from the same 6/1/1946 photo of waterfront yard in Vancouver BC on
the CPR as the photo of the UP and SSW cars discussed a couple of weeks
back.

The car is further back in the yard, and much less of it is visible.
What is clear is the MILW tilted wafer sign, the double doors and the
distinctive ribs.

We have several photos of BCK 40' PS-1 box cars with open doors showing
the remains of bulk loose white powder (assuming it's flour because of the
printing on the side of the car, see below) and special linings or a sort of
seal around the door openings. A couple of our BCK sources have mentioned
these BCK cars were running back and forth from Seattle, WA to the east
coast. Apparently, these cars were used as "hoppers" for flour like others
were used for grain until real hoppers became more available and popular.

The following info is printed at the left of the doors:

SPECIAL WEEVIL CONTROL CAR
DO NOT CONTAMINATE
RETURN EMPTY TO BUFFALO
FOR FLOUR RELOADING

We have several photos of BCK 40' PS-1 box cars with open doors showing
the remains of bulk loose white powder (assuming it's flour because of the
printing on the side of the car, see below) and special linings or a sort of
seal around the door openings. A couple of our BCK sources have mentioned
these BCK cars were running back and forth from Seattle, WA to the east
coast. Apparently, these cars were used as "hoppers" for flour like others
were used for grain until real hoppers became more available and popular.

The following info is printed at the left of the doors:

SPECIAL WEEVIL CONTROL CAR
DO NOT CONTAMINATE
RETURN EMPTY TO BUFFALO
FOR FLOUR RELOADING

Sam Clarke
Kadee Quality Products

Does anyone know for sure if railroads limited fast
freight consists
or other specially selected trains to house cars so
train men could
walk between the caboose to locomotive? I am
specificly interested
in the post WWII before 1950 era.

We've been having an ongoing discussion of train men
walking on the
roof tops of cars for some time.

It is my contention that walking across open top
cars would be very
difficult to impossible.

Walking across a loaded hopper would be precarious -
the load is
liable to shift. Crossing empty hoppers would be
almost as
difficult. Walking on slope sheets would be awkward
and time
consuming and each car had a waist high obstacle in
the middle.
Climbing over the end would be an athletic feat.

Walking in a gon loaded with scrap could be
precarious too. One slip
and a man's foot could get wedged in or cut to the
bone. Getting
over the ends of some empty gons would be near
impossible. Some
common gons had inside height of 4'8". Few men are
capable of
getting over those ends that height(I never could
and I used to be a
strength athlete capable of 20+ chin ups). Getting
over a tall box
on a flat or in a gon would be impossible too.

A year or so ago Schuyler Larabee (SGL) listed half
a dozen or so
consists from the '30s headed by Erie Berkshires.
These were fast
freights containing a lot of reefers. I don't recall
any open top
cars in those lists.

Was this a coincidence or a railroad policy? I know
most open top
car loads aren't very time sensitive but a shipper
might not want to
have some open top cars hanging around in a yard or
even as part of
a slow freight - a gon loaded with scrap brass or
copper for
instance.

Ed