The floors and decks of the early (pre-1920 or so, mostly narrow gauge, all wooden frame) cars I have restored are untreated, and none of the early freight car references (Voss, Kirkman, MCB standards (adopted or proposed) or the various Car Builders Dictionaries) I have looked at mention a treatment. One place to check would be the standards for repair to interchanged cars, originally published by the MCB, later by other groups. . .

I do wonder why you would treat a flatcar deck.... To a large extent the deck was disposable. Cleats and blocking is nailed to the deck. I wouldn't be surprised to find that decks were only supposed to last 5 years, 10 years at most. Turn of the century (1900) literature on wooden flatcars suggests they were typically destroyed before they could rot.

Randy Hees

Randy,

You are probably right about not treating the decks on flat cars in the
past, but a preserved car today is a somewhat different matter. Back in
1999 a volunteer group restored Oakland & Antioch flat car 2002 for the
CSRM during Railfair '99. Apparently untreated lumber was used for the
deck. Within a few years the deck had warped so badly that the car had
to be withdrawn from display. When I was there last year the car had
still not been repaired, and given the tight money at the museum it may
be a long time before this historically significant car is again
available for display or study.

The car was, by the way, built by Holman Car Co. of San Francisco in
1911. It passed to successor Oakland, Antioch & Eastern around 1913,
then to the Sacramento Northern Railway in 1929 as MW 32. The car was
eventually fitted with a small crane and a tool shed, which is why it
survived long enough to be donated to the CSRM in the 1970s.

Kind regards,


Garth G. Groff

As others have alluded to, wood is treated to slow down decay due to organisms that deteriorate it. This has nothing to do with wood warpage, so treating the lumber will not prevent warpage. In fact, the grades of wood used and the treatment process itself can enhance the probability of warpage. Whatever the source of the problems mentioned below, it was most certainly not the use of untreated wood.

I have to agree with other writers who suggest that in our time frame of interest, wood decks were expendable. Wood was still cheap. Heavy loads dragged over decks, dropped on them, secured with blocking etc would have trashed the wood long before decay organisms could make much progress. In the case of Douglas fir, old growth lumber was far more resistant to decay than today's second growth and/or plantation product, and would last many years in outdoor service even without treatment.

We have to be careful about applying today's experiences to the steam era, when raw materials and labour were relatively cheap compared to today, and solutions thus tended to be more low-tech. And timber, especially, was generally of higher quality even at the lower price.

Doug Rhodes

----- Original Message -----
From: "Garth Groff" <ggg9y@...>
To: <STMFC@...>
Sent: Wednesday, January 18, 2006 9:14 AM
Subject: Re: [STMFC] Freight car floors

Randy,

You are probably right about not treating the decks on flat cars in the
past, but a preserved car today is a somewhat different matter. Back in
1999 a volunteer group restored Oakland & Antioch flat car 2002 for the
CSRM during Railfair '99. Apparently untreated lumber was used for the
deck. Within a few years the deck had warped so badly that the car had
to be withdrawn from display. When I was there last year the car had
still not been repaired, and given the tight money at the museum it may
be a long time before this historically significant car is again
available for display or study.

The car was, by the way, built by Holman Car Co. of San Francisco in
1911. It passed to successor Oakland, Antioch & Eastern around 1913,
then to the Sacramento Northern Railway in 1929 as MW 32. The car was
eventually fitted with a small crane and a tool shed, which is why it
survived long enough to be donated to the CSRM in the 1970s.

Kind regards,


Garth G. Groff

Yahoo! Groups Links

From: "Garth Groff" <ggg9y@...>

Randy,

You are probably right about not treating the

decks on flat cars in the

past, but a preserved car today is a somewhat

different matter. Back in

1999 a volunteer group restored Oakland & Antioch

flat car 2002 for the

CSRM during Railfair '99. Apparently untreated

lumber was used for the

deck. Within a few years the deck had warped so

badly that the car had

to be withdrawn from display.

Some thoughts about warping freight car decks.

Quality of wood is important if ones' objective is to
avoid warpage. Most wood being harvested at the turn
of the previous century was "old growth". Old growth
timber, particularly western timber, is characterized
as having a higher winter wood to spring wood ratio,
these being what we know as tree rings. The slower
winter growth is what the ring is composed of, the
much faster growing spring wood is what spaces out the
tree rings. Second and third growth timbers have a
very high percentage of the weaker summer wood. This
is why much of today's lumber warps fairly easily,
much less rings making much less strength.

Another factor is grain orientation. Flat car wood
decking if of vertical, tight grained milled lumber
will last for a long time, much more than flat grained
decking (that is grain which is horizontal in the
decking lumber. Long time ago flat grained lumber was
often considered waste wood, and would be burnt in the
teepee burner, or used for cheap barn siding and attic
floor boards.

So the experience of the flat car restoration done
with today's lumber does not necessarily explain flat
car decking durability of 100 years ago.

From: "Garth Groff" <ggg9y@...>

Randy,

You are probably right about not treating the

decks on flat cars in the

past, but a preserved car today is a somewhat

different matter. Back in

1999 a volunteer group restored Oakland & Antioch

flat car 2002 for the

CSRM during Railfair '99. Apparently untreated

lumber was used for the

deck. Within a few years the deck had warped so

badly that the car had

to be withdrawn from display.

Yahoo! Groups Links