Photo: Wrecked ATSF End Door Boxcar 6979 (1953)

Courtesy of Steve Crise, a Jack Whitmeyer photo from the Pacific Railroad Society Museum archives of a wrecked Santa Fe automobile boxcar at Colton, CA.

This was a Class Fe-23 boxcar (number series 6786-6999), one of 214 former Fe-S cars rebuilt by the Topeka Shops in 1941. The Fe-S automobile boxcars were built in 1928.

Pacific Railroad Society Museum website:

http://www.pacificrailroadsociety.org/PRS_Museum.html

Bob Chaparro

Hemet, CA

That would be an interesting model?

One theory -- the car was spotted right where it was photographed, on a siding with a bumper which looks like it could be a wheel-stop type (acting only on the wheels of the leading axle).  Switcher shoved a car into it, with some momentum, perhaps the GTW car shown.  Couplers overrode, the moving car's coupler punched the door in, and the restraining force was acting on the opposite truck, rather than the coupler like some other types of bumper would have done.  The impact caused the frame to yield at the two weak points, either side of the door openings, while the sides kept the roof and underbody relatively square in the areas where the sides were located.  Note that the stiffener under the door does not extend past the door openings on either side.  Doors probably fell off in the impact, and they probably were picked up right away if they were fouling the adjacent track.

Great failure photo.

Ron Merrick