The scale at the boxcar tells me it's cement. The sand and aggregate are much greater in volume is concrete and can just be proportioned by volume, but the cement was typically done by counting the ba

This was certainly the case with the NYC system. At the turn of the twentieth century they were building 36' boxcars with truss rod wood underframes; about 1910 they adapted the same design to SUF, th

I agree with Bruce on all counts, but I still think this is at some major paving project where the scale is being used to accurately measure bulk Portland cement into batch trucks. Otherwise, why not

The "industrial tractor" looks to me like the small batch trucks paving contractors used on highway projects back around WWI. It doesn't need headlights 'cause they don't work after dark. These trucks

You realize that in our time frame the "ban" on archbar trucks simply said they couldn't be offered in unrestricted interchange. The railroads were free to haul anything that they could be persuaded t

Ken, You are off by about twelve or fifteen years. The last large group of wood framed, SUF boxcars were the USRA DS cars, and they weren't built until 1918-19. They were just coming due for rebuildin

Well, Saskatoon is a major city, so I suppose this large lump is going to a commercial user, but most coal consumed in the little towns on the Canadian prairies and northern Great Plains was shipped i

Think back to state-of-the-art for safety appliances ca. 1940... all house cars had running boards down the center of their roof. I suspect these were built for in-plant use and Union Carbide had some

The Soo engaged in this practice also, again very evident in the caboose fleet. Dimensions inexplicably change for just one car in a series, and the records just claim "rebuilt." I've made my peace wi

Thank you for this. It answers a question I've long had. In the early years of the twentieth century, and perhaps before, it was relatively common for railroads to buy new equipment and number it in e

The thought occurs to me that this organization may have owned lodging in some major terminals, and the payment was for pre-paid lodging. Incorporation is governed by state laws; I seem to recall some

I don't think that's a deck, but rather rub rails, possibly made of old rail. I kinda figured it was an early piggyback car. Dennis Storzek

Andy, Doesn't look to be the case here, but I can certainly see it with other apparatus. Dennis Storzek

I suspect they don't have a end-of-track ramp, so drove it out on a flatcar then maneuvered it onto a side loading platform, which were much more common in small towns. Dennis Storzek

The weathering job looks great, very believable. Too bad K4 doesn't include lettering diagrams; the Soo applied the "$" herald with the sides vertical; it was supposed to be a perspective view of a ha

#44500-45098

Interesting. I thought there was an icing platform down there somewhere, but if you look at the bottom of that photo, just left of center, there is a string of reefers with their hatches open and a co

Very faintly visible in the deep shadow on the starboard side of the tug, just aft of the superstructure. Dennis Storzek

Cool. South Water Street terminal. That skinny little spire to the left in the skyline is Mather Tower, which was the headquarters of the Mather Stock Car Co. and briefly the tallest building in Chica

Just an additional comment, that triangle shaped blob next to the door is the logo General American applied to most, if not all, the cars they owned. Dennis Storzek

Or not. Safe or not, there was never a requirement to have a brake step, just recommended practice, I believe. The Soo Line had thousands of boxcars where the brakeman would have had to be a midget to