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[Non-DoD Source] [RealSTMFC] Photo: Seamless Pipe Fitting Load On GN Flat Car 60031 (1956) now PRR cars

Donald B. Valentine <riverman_vt@...>
 

 

    Thanks for the PRR photo Schuyler. It proves exactly what I had posted earlier. I believe

The car in your photo has no floor at all and has no need of one. Look at how the short,

Cylindrical load is carried. It is “pinched”, if you will, by large timbers on the regular deck

of the car. Those timbers are then heavily braced to be sure the load cannot drop any lower.

To be doubly sure you will note that there is additional timbering just below its extreme

Height. Thus no floor was needed.

 

Cordially, Don Valentine

 
Schuyler Larrabee
 

If I am not mistaken, the LV had a similar car.  I have a brass model that I’ve painted, though it’s in a box and I’ve not seen it for quite a while.

 

Schuyler

 
Gatwood, Elden J SAD
 

Thanks, Claus!

 

Note that these cars were designed at a time that engineers (the design kind) were trying to figure out how to make cars resistant to excessive bending (or failure), and had not yet figured out the best way to do it.  PRR’s answer was to rivet multiple strips of steel together to resist that bending, resulting in the look shown in these photos.  The top down of 425018 is instructive.

 

Since the sides adjacent to the hole were weaker, it was PRR’s intent to spread the load over the ends, like in photo of 425004. 

 

B&M had similar intent on their well cars, which were used for big GE products.  Big girders with end feet transferred the load over the ends, like 425004.

 

I had the luck to see an ex-PRR F37B (IIRC) on DoD property at one point, and crawled all over it.  What an anachronism!

 

Eventually, PRR went to GSI for a better replacement, the F49 shown.  What a beautiful car!!!

 

Elden Gatwood

 

From: main@RealSTMFC.groups.io <main@RealSTMFC.groups.io> On Behalf Of Claus Schlund \(HGM\)
Sent: Wednesday, July 29, 2020 8:56 AM
To: main@RealSTMFC.groups.io
Subject: [Non-DoD Source] [RealSTMFC] Photo: Seamless Pipe Fitting Load On GN Flat Car 60031 (1956) now PRR cars

 

Hi Elden and List Members,

 

Thanks for the great explanation of this situation and the multiple images.

 

Elden did not have a PRR class FN image to share with us, but there is one at the link below...

 

 

Claus Schlund

 

 

----- Original Message -----

Sent: Tuesday, July 28, 2020 8:40 PM

Subject: Re: [Non-DoD Source] [RealSTMFC] Photo: Seamless Pipe Fitting Load On GN Flat Car 60031 (1956) now PRR cars

 

Folks;

 

It may be semantic, but take a look at these oddball flat cars (which I love), as examples of well and well hole flats.

 

The PRR FN was a 37-car class of well hole flats (I guess as opposed to well “pocket” flats), constructed between  1902 and 1915, to accommodate loads that could not be accommodated by other cars due to the intended height of the load, so were suspended over the rails on a pressed steel assembly of riveted steel members sandwiched one next to another.  I am sorry I do not have a photo to show you, but there are several in the PRRT&HS flat car book.

 

The FNA is a well flat with removeable flooring to convert it to well hole flat when needed.  These 20 cars were converted from FN between 1926 and 1929 for things like vessel screws (like the G25 screw cars, there were never enough during war time), but with more load capacity atop a wooden floor that could be removed.  FNA were very popular during WW2 for other loads, like for 40mm Bofors twin gun tubs, perhaps mounted horizontally (I am looking forward to those photos).

 

With wartime demand, PRR constructed an additional 20 flats as slightly longer versions of the FNA in 1942, as class F37.  The removable flooring and structural cross-members remained.

 

During 1950-53, 31 FN and FNA were rebuilt as 14 F37A (the remainder scrapped or held in reserve for conversion to F37B).  They also had floors atop structural members crossing the well.

 

The F37B were converted between 1948 and 1952, from original FN, with newer ends (longer) to accommodate their new brake gear at both ends of the car.  They were well hole flats, not provided floors, but with structural members on either end of the pocket.  See photos.

 

Semantic, no doubt, but interesting to some of us that find them fascinating.

 

Elden Gatwood

 

 

From: main@RealSTMFC.groups.io <main@RealSTMFC.groups.io> On Behalf Of Gatwood, Elden J SAD
Sent: Tuesday, July 28, 2020 1:36 PM
To: main@RealSTMFC.groups.io
Subject: Re: [Non-DoD Source] [RealSTMFC] Photo: Seamless Pipe Fitting Load On GN Flat Car 60031 (1956)

 

Schuyler;

 

I don’t read that from either ORER or pic.  It has a wood floor, something you don’t generally have in a well HOLE flat, which has no cross-members beneath the “hole”, which this car has no evidence of.  No shadows beneath the car, either, which you usually see on well hole cars.

 

This looks to me to be a conversion of a “standard” flat car, to one with a shallow well, in which the cross-members/bearers have been replaced in the well, by I-beams either welded, bolted, or riveted (I cannot see), to the bottom of the side sill, and reinforced beneath, for support of the five replacements.  Removable floor supports generally have evidence of them in the form of brackets or additional reinforcements into which bolts are inserted, which do not appear here.

 

I pondered whether this might be a “sectional” well hole flat like PRR’s F49’s, but nothing appears different around a potential removable “section” that comes out to allow a further drop through the floor, like the excellent photo on the cover of the PRRT&HS flat car book.

 

All that being said, I remain open to convincing!

 

Elden Gatwood

 

 

From: main@RealSTMFC.groups.io <main@RealSTMFC.groups.io> On Behalf Of Schuyler Larrabee via groups.io
Sent: Tuesday, July 28, 2020 12:57 PM
To: main@RealSTMFC.groups.io
Subject: Re: [Non-DoD Source] [RealSTMFC] Photo: Seamless Pipe Fitting Load On GN Flat Car 60031 (1956)

 

Elden, that is DEFINITELY a well-hole flat.  You can see in the panel where the LD LMT is shown that the bottom of the “pipe fitting” is below the deck.  And all that bracing, the timbers and the tie rods, are clearly temporary.

 

Schuyler

 

 

 

From: main@RealSTMFC.groups.io <main@RealSTMFC.groups.io> On Behalf Of Gatwood, Elden J SAD
Sent: Tuesday, July 28, 2020 10:50 AM
To: main@RealSTMFC.groups.io
Subject: Re: [Non-DoD Source] [RealSTMFC] Photo: Seamless Pipe Fitting Load On GN Flat Car 60031 (1956)

 

Bob, all;

 

These GN cars are very interesting.  I know next to nothing about them, except what I can glean from photos.  I believe it is a well flat, not a well HOLE flat, since it does not look like the floor supports are removable.  I have wondered what GN needed these cars for, since it is usually an on-line customer that needed them.  These shipments were just lucrative enough that RRs could be convinced the roster them, otherwise….not.

 

The side members are surprisingly slender for a more typical well flat, which generally had deep side sills, but there is that u/f, which indicates the well is not that deep….

 

Elden Gatwood

 

From: main@RealSTMFC.groups.io <main@RealSTMFC.groups.io> On Behalf Of Bob Chaparro via groups.io
Sent: Sunday, July 26, 2020 1:47 PM
To: main@RealSTMFC.groups.io
Subject: [Non-DoD Source] [RealSTMFC] Photo: Seamless Pipe Fitting Load On GN Flat Car 60031 (1956)

 

Photo: Seamless Pipe Fitting Load On GN Flat Car 60031 (1956)

A photo from the Wisconsin Historical Society:

BlockedBlockedBlockedBlockedhttps://www.wisconsinhistory.org/Records/Image/IM49938

Appears to be a well hole flat car.

Bob Chaparro

Hemet, CA
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