Frank
The first ORER I have that breaks down the number of cars in each numerical
group is February 1916 ORER, when there were 1231 box cars with a nominal
length of 34 feet. These cars were from classes XM-2 to XM-6, built
between 1887 and 1905. The only difference between 1915 and 1916 was that more
cars would have been retired, including the two 1888 ex-CB&N #23519 and #23869
which were still listed in 1915.
The cars in these classes were built by a variety of commercial builders and,
in theory, would have been similar to other box cars of the era. However,
the cars were built to CB&Q specifications as opposed to stock production,
and Aurora built one or more sample cars for each class which were lent to the
builders as a guide.
Looking at diagrams of these five classes,
all of the cars had canted queen posts, as did 34’ reefers and coal cars.
The canted posts weren’t restricted to 34’ cars – 40’
cars such as the XM-9, 11, 13 and 16 also had them. Diagrams of the XM-4
appeared in several of the trade magazines in 1896 so I’ll forward you a
copy separately.
Rupert Gamlen
Auckland NZ
From:
CBQ@yahoogroups.com [mailto:CBQ@yahoogroups.com]
Sent: 14 October 2015 17:01
To: CBQ@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [CBQ] 34' boxcars
I am interested in modeling the CB&Q in 1915 and I have a question about
the line's 34' boxcars. At that time they were rapidly being retired in
favor of new 40' cars, from what I can gather from ORERs available online, but
there were still a few hundred 34' cars in service. The only photo I've
been able to find of one was on this group, post #49156:
So my
question is, did all of the line's 34' boxcars have those canted queen posts
that angled away from the center line of the car or did some have more typical
vertical queen posts? I've been able to find virtually no information on
turn-of-the-century CB&Q freight cars online and don't know where to look
in published material.
Frank Hicks