I have a couple of old 36 foot flat cars with raised sides that come up roughly 3 or 4 scale feet and I'm wondering what sort of cargo they would have carried. It seems that the raised sides would make loading and unloading general cargo more difficult than on a truly flat flat car so I wonder if these were intended for a specific type of freight.
Any thoughts?
Carter, Pipe would be one item I can think of. Here in Texas they loaded up cotton on just about anything that rolled on rails. Bruce
Wood sides? Sounds like a low-side gondola. Here is Wisconsin, coal and sugar beets were common loads in these wood-sided cars during the first half of the twentieth century.
Typically, anything that had to be hand shoveled. This sort of car evolved into the more modern gondola which has sides that seem to get higher each decade. But, in the good old day of cheap labor, low side gondolas and flats with side boards carried all sorts of bulk commodities.
CTucker NY
And in the transition days they could be MOW cars on Class 9 branch lines.
Thanks for the info guys... very useful.
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