Several years ago, fellow S scaler Pieter Roos commissioned a Hutchins roof, as used on FGEX/WFEX/BREX
reefers rebuilt in the 30’s, to be manufactured as a urethane casting. The roof design features a fastener
head located in a depression at the very end of the roof rib at the eave, as shown in the attached image,
rather unlike the fastener at mid-rib on, for example, a Hutchins Dry Lading roof. Are there any known
examples of such a roof design used on other house cars beyond the reefer companies’ cars? I obtained
some additional examples of Pieter’s castings well in excess of the number of such reefers I’d ever need to
build, and would be interested in splicing them and using them on box cars if the opportunity exists.

Earl Tuson

I've never seen that particular roof on any car not associated with the FGE consortium. On the other hand, FGE used it on just about every style of wood-bodied reefer they owned, so there are a lot of reefers that could go under it.

David Thompson

The Hutchins roofs I have seen on Boxcars where the roof panels are visible there is a crease pressed into the center of each panel. This crease is never evident on FGE/WFE/BRE cars where the roof is visible. My surmise is that the System only purchased the Rib Parts and fabricated their own Roof Panels in their various shops. I do have drawings that refer to the roof or rib parts as Hutchins. AFAIK this replacement roof was used on all the System's early wood cars with these exceptions: Some WFE and all BRE truss rod reefers; WFE's ACF built fishbelly reefers; some of the 1922-23 built BRE, FW&D and CS reefers that retained their Murphy roofs. No FGE/WFE/BRE cars were built new with this roof.

I agree with David as to it use by other companies.

Really good to see your name Earl.

Bill Welch

I've seen the drawing of which Bill speaks. The real unique aspect is the placement of the bolts at the extreme outward ends of the seam caps. The purpose of this is so the bolts pass through the fascia of the car, making the nuts accessible from outside the car. This means that damaged roof panels can be replaced from outside the car; no need to disturb the lining or insulation, or load, for that matter. This is the same reason the later steel reefers typically used the overhanging 'ZU' eave construction.

Since this has little value on a common boxcar, the original pattern with the bolts part way up the roof pitch continued to be used.

Dennis Storzek

Depending on the lighting the nut and end of the bolt can be seen in some photos under the roof eave. I have an one of Chooch's Ultra Scale's FGE reefer kits that if I ever get it built I will try to model this detail

Bill welch

Dennis explains:

The purpose of this is so the bolts pass through the fascia of the car, making the nuts accessible from

outside the car. This means that damaged roof panels can be replaced from outside the car; no need to
disturb the lining or insulation, or load, for that matter.

Ah ha! After my post’s initial crickets, I got out my (borrowed) copy of the ‘31 CBC, and began to think,
without the benefit of the correct reference drawing, that perhaps the roof used a lag screw going into the
wooden plate for the same reason Dennis gives above- access to the underside of the roof would have been
nigh impossible. But a standard bolt would be much more inline with standard construction techniques.
Thank you for sharing that.

And I’d completely agree that, consequently, there would be no use for such a fastener position on an Xm.

Last thing, perhaps for you Bill: when was the first application of these roofs? Pieter’s given me the
indication that they really aren’t appropriate for 1930, the rebuilds being from the later 1930’s.

Earl Tuson

As good fortune would have it I have two photos with reweigh dates of 1935, one with the original board roof and the other with the new Hutchins roof. By 1935 the cars built new by FGE in 1922 would have been in service for 13 years and their double board roofs must have been failing. I think FGE was aggressive with this replacement. It is curious to me that WFE did not replace all of the wood roof on their truss rood cars not did BRE on its TR cars.

Bill Welch