Freight cars query

Dec 22, 2008 2 Replies

Please could anyone clarify when the following types of freight car went out of general use on American railroads:


  1. Wooden sided (as opposed to steel) box cars.


  1. Livestock cars.



Thanks,



Roger Thomas, Swansea, UK.


Generally for North American practice, the 1960s & 1970s are a big transition time. I believe wooden boxcars were taken out of interchange service during the 1960s (heck, the 40' boxcar itself was disappearing by the end of the 1960s), although some remained in grain service into the 1970s. Wooden reefers continued into the early 1970s, although with most icing facilities gone by then they didn't last much long. Live-stock handling was a big pain to railroads toward the end (had to stop every so often to rest & water the livestock), and I believe most of that was handed to trucks in the 1960s (actually, I belive it was that a change in the 1940s, that instead of hauling livestock long distances to slaughterhouses in Chicago or Kansas City, build small local slaugherhouses closer to the ranches, and then ship the meat (which doesn't need to be rested or watered) to it's destination. I remember some livestock service to NJ into the 1980s and Farmer John's in California took livestock service well into the 1990s (Both services are mentioned in the wiki Stock Car article:

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(Both

article:

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Sorry about that, for some reason the link was cut off at the last parenthesis - it should be

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if the last parenthese (after rail) gets omitted from the link again, then just cut n paste if you haven't already...

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