40 foot boxcar rebuild

[TrainNut]

Thanks Gary! Very enlightening. When I was just a wee lad, I used to spend quite a bit of time at my grandfathers place in Tucson. Down in the lower field, his workshop was an old insulated boxcar. I don't remember if it was a 40 or 50 footer, but I do remember crawling up the ladders (full laddders) and all over the roofwalk on the top (I guess that makes it a 40'er). The brake wheel was mounted on the end (as opposed to on top). Even when it was over 100 degrees outside, you could go down to that boxcar, and feel the cool air come pouring out as you cracked the doors open! Ahhhh, memories.

[Gary S]

That must have been really cool having access to a boxcar. There is a landscaping company in Pearland that has an old 50 foot boxcar as the office. Last year I was down on a ranch in South Texas and they had a couple of boxcars out on the ranch in remote locations. One of them was a Katy. Can't remember what the other was.

There is an old 40 foot Santa Fe boxcar on an abandoned siding just off the road I use to get to work. One of these days I may sneak over there and take some pics.

[Gary S]

Here is the finished boxcar.

Although I greatly admire the models and the rivet counting modelers who are faithful to the prototype, with all the research, the minute and fragile details like cut levers and fine scale ladders and all, and weeks spent weathering one car, it's just not what I do. Because my layout will have interchange yards at each end where the cars will be taken on and off the layout, I want a tough car that can take the handling. Molded on ladders and grabs are okay, don't need anything that will break off, and have too many cars that need weathering to spend weeks on one car.

The car I just did is perfectly satisfactory for my needs - Three Foot Rule!

[Puddlejumper]

I think the brake wheels were placed up high so the brakeman, who was walking the length of the train on the roof walks, didn't have to climb all the way down to set the brakes - just a few steps down, set the brakes, and a little walk up the ladder and go on to the next car....

That makes sense, but why did he have to walk the roof in the first place? Why couldn't he just walk on the ground? With low brake wheels?

He had to walk up there. That is where they rode when the train was moving. You see, before the invention of the automatic brake, brakemen rode the roofs of the cars. The length of the train determined how many brakemen you had. When the engineer wanted to stop or slow down he had a whistle signal that would notify the brakemen to apply the brakes. Then they would walk the train, jumping from car to car to apply the brakes.

OSHA would have a field day with such an activity today!!!

[Triplex]

Existing cars had to have the roofwalks removed by 1974. That date was eventually pushed back to 1979.

And wasn't it delayed again to 1983?

[Gary S]

Existing cars had to have the roofwalks removed by 1974. That date was eventually pushed back to 1979.

And wasn't it delayed again to 1983?

Not sure.

MRR's "Detailing Freight Cars" doesn't mention 1983 but it could have been.

I am interested if anyone has any data on when the 40 foot cars were nearing their end.

[Russ Bellinis]

I think the brake wheels were placed up high so the brakeman, who was walking the length of the train on the roof walks, didn't have to climb all the way down to set the brakes - just a few steps down, set the brakes, and a little walk up the ladder and go on to the next car....

That makes sense, but why did he have to walk the roof in the first place? Why couldn't he just walk on the ground? With low brake wheels?

Before diesels, there were no dynamic brakes. The brakemen had to set the brakes by hand to use as retarders when the train was going down hill, go through the process again to release the brakes when the train got off the hill. They used a head end brakeman and a tail end brakeman. The head end brakeman would start at the locomotive and set brakes moving back while the rear end brakeman would start at the caboose heading forward, and they would meet in the middle. The brakes needed to be set and released while the train was in motion. Dynamic brakes on the new diesels eliminated the need to set brakes as retarders on down grades and release them off the hill, so the roof walks became obsolete. I think the roof walks were eliminated as a safety measure, and all new equipment had the brake wheels mounted lower. The only equipment that still uses roof walks today are covered hoppers because of the need to open hatches for loading. Ice bunker reefers also needed roof walks to allow for icing the loads, but they were being phased out in favor of mechanical reefers during the transition and were pretty much gone by 1972.

[Gary S]

Russ,

That makes perfect sense now. Thanks for the info. As usual, TheGauge.net is a wealth of information.

[Gary S]

He had to walk up there. That is where they rode when the train was moving. You see, before the invention of the automatic brake, brakemen rode the roofs of the cars. The length of the train determined how many brakemen you had. When the engineer wanted to stop or slow down he had a whistle signal that would notify the brakemen to apply the brakes. Then they would walk the train, jumping from car to car to apply the brakes.

Russ' reply made me understand... the car brakes were actually used to slow down the train... they had to apply the brakes while the train was moving. Therefore, walking alongside on the ground would not have worked. I was thinking that the individual car brakes were used only to stop the car from rolling after it was stopped. Doh!

So on modern trains, do they vary the air pressure in the brake system so that the brakes in each car help slow the train besides just the engine braking?

[Russ Bellinis]

Yes they do that as well. I think that modern technology also gives the engineer more control over the entire train than the steam engine operator ever had. The railroads also use simulators for training engineers much like airlines use them for pilots. I read an article in the Warbonnet a few years ago about the Santa Fe's use of a simulator to train engineers to run the Seligman district on the Santa Fe. That district in the area between Kingman and Flagstaff has a lot of up and down hill and mountain running. They used to have a big problem with trains bunching and slacking and breaking couplers and drawbars trying to get through that district. The engineer needs to balance braking and throttle to keep from "snapping" part of the train from bunched to slack which would break the train apart.

[Puddlejumper]

I believe it was the invention of the automatic brake, not the dynamic brake, that eliminated the need for rooftop brakemen. Prior to the common 5 man crews of the steam era, there would have been a brakeman for every 6 cars or so, because the hand brake was the only brake a train had. Many locomotives didn't even have independent brakes.

Here's a couple of images from Shorpy of brakemen riding the roofs.

http://www.shorpy.com/node/6274?size=_original

http://www.shorpy.com/node/6573?size=_original

somewhere I have a image saved of a moving train with brakemen staged throughout the train, if i find it i'll post up.

Correction!! The automatic brake eliminated the extra brakemen riding the roofs of cars after 1869 or so. They still had front and rear end brakemen that would have to go to the roofs for various reasons after the automatic brake was adopted, which would fit with Russ's explanation above. So really we're both right...

[e-paw]

It was for 2 reasons. It's kind of hard to walk from one car to another on the ground if the train is moving. In earlier days (Before air brakes) it was common for brakeman to travel from car to car over a moving train to set the brakes. One brakeman would be in charge of several cars and need access to the brakes on all of them. When the invention of air brakes came around the walkways and high mounted brakes were kept in place for the second reason. The need for the brakeman to see over the car while operating in a hump yard. Not all yards were automated so the brakeman had to be able to see where the car was going, and use the hand brake.

[Gary S]

I didn't realize that the railroaders spent so much time on the roofs. I wonder what the injury rate was back then. Sounds dangerous!

[Russ Bellinis]

It was dangerous! People were considered expendable unless they were upper level management. In the "old west" up until the 1900 or so it was considered "self defense" to shoot someone if they were carrying a gun. A certain number of injuries or even deaths were considered part of the hazards of living.

[doctorwayne]

Great-looking results on that car, Gary. I especially like the open door and your technique for modelling the inside face of the closed door.

Depending on the locale, many 40' cars were still in use long after they were impractical for most applications - the lightly-built branch lines on the Canadian prairies are an example of this: with track too light to support 100 ton covered hoppers, shippers continued to use 40' boxcars well into the '80s.
In other instances, many 40'-ers were nearing the 40 year service limit on their frames by the '70s, so were simply scrapped rather than have the ladders modified to match the current standards.

As for braking, my understanding of the procedure is to use dynamic braking (where available) in conjunction with both the locomotive's independent brake and the automatic air brakes on the cars. Hopefully, someone with practical experience can expand on this.

Wayne