On Dec 11, 2006, at 8:04 PM, Dave Nelson wrote:

Some interesting car images from the C&NW Historical Society.

<snip>

index:http://www.cnwhs.org/memberphotos/displayimage.php? album=6&pos=225

Too cool! This image is labeled "NWX 263206 tank car in fuel service at Jones Island in Milwaukee, WI. Car was built in 1928, rebuilt in 1937. Photo by Clem Devine, 5-1980."

The tank appears to be a "type 17" (ie the AC&F type 11 with double rivets). Thus I have a hard time believing that the tank was built in 1928 <G>. More likely, the older tank was applied to a new underframe in 1928. Given the date, the underframe should be a type 27, but it has the shorter look of a type 21 frame. Any ideas? Would the 1937 rebuilding be something like K to AB brakes?

It sure would be interesting to know the history of this car before CNW...

Regards
Bruce

Bruce F. Smith
Auburn, AL
http://www.vetmed.auburn.edu/~smithbf/

"Some days you are the bug, some days you are the
windshield."
__
/ &#92;
__<+--+>________________&#92;__/___ ________________________________
|- ______/ O O &#92;_______ -| | __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ |
| / 4999 PENNSYLVANIA 4999 &#92; | ||__||__||__||__||__||__||__||__||
|/_____________________________&#92;|_|________________________________|
| O--O &#92;0 0 0 0/ O--O | 0-0-0 0-0-0

I said:

Too cool! This image is labeled "NWX 263206 tank car in fuel service
at Jones Island in Milwaukee, WI. Car was built in 1928, rebuilt in
1937. Photo by Clem Devine, 5-1980."

The tank appears to be a "type 17" (ie the AC&F type 11 with double
rivets). Thus I have a hard time believing that the tank was built
in 1928 <G>. More likely, the older tank was applied to a new
underframe in 1928. Given the date, the underframe should be a type
27, but it has the shorter look of a type 21 frame. Any ideas? Would
the 1937 rebuilding be something like K to AB brakes?

There is a second image of another very similar CNW tank car, #263209, at:
http://www.cnwhs.org/memberphotos/displayimage.php?album=6&pos=224

This one is captioned "8000 gallon tank car used in fuel service. The tank was built in 1926, the under frame was built June, 1937. Dick Talbott photo, 5-22, 1984"

Again, the tank is clearly a vertical course, two rivet row tank (type 17) and the frame is a later AC&F frame. Very interesting...

Regards
Bruce

Bruce F. Smith
Auburn, AL
http://www.vetmed.auburn.edu/~smithbf/

"Some days you are the bug, some days you are the
windshield."
__
/ &#92;
__<+--+>________________&#92;__/___ ________________________________
|- ______/ O O &#92;_______ -| | __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ |
| / 4999 PENNSYLVANIA 4999 &#92; | ||__||__||__||__||__||__||__||__||
|/_____________________________&#92;|_|________________________________|
| O--O &#92;0 0 0 0/ O--O | 0-0-0 0-0-0

On Dec 12, 2006, at 6:37 AM, Bruce Smith wrote:

Too cool! This image is labeled "NWX 263206 tank car in fuel service
at Jones Island in Milwaukee, WI. Car was built in 1928, rebuilt in
1937. Photo by Clem Devine, 5-1980."

The tank appears to be a "type 17" (ie the AC&F type 11 with double
rivets). Thus I have a hard time believing that the tank was built
in 1928 <G>. More likely, the older tank was applied to a new
underframe in 1928. Given the date, the underframe should be a type
27, but it has the shorter look of a type 21 frame. Any ideas? Would
the 1937 rebuilding be something like K to AB brakes?

It sure would be interesting to know the history of this car before
CNW...

Bruce is correct that the tank appears to be an AC&F Type 17 and the underframe a Type 21. And it should be noted that Type 21 underframes continued to be built after the Type 27 was introduced in 1927 (there was very little difference between them apart from length). AC&F was still building what were essentially new tank cars of Type 21 design and dimensions as late as 1930.

The "mismatch" of tank with underframe is easily explained. It was relatively easy (and quite common) for existing tanks to be mounted on new underframes, or vice-versa. Sometimes this was done by the tank car builders; for example, I have AC&F builder's photos of new tanks applied in the 1930s to the owner's existing underframes of older design. Owners who had, or had access to, well equipped car shops sometimes carried out this work themselves. And it wasn't unusual for railroads to carry out such tank/underframe swaps on cars that they had wrecked, written off, and paid the owners for. The repaired/rebuilt cars then went into on-line service as fuel or water cars. The C&NW certainly did this, as I have several photos of C&NW MW cars which were obviously second-hand.

Richard Hendrickson