USDA PHOTO: CIRCA 1928 Moving melons by rail Loading watermelon cars in the steam era/David Steer O
ne evening after the regular op- erating session our host re- marked that he had often seen
“watermelon cars” at the local team track when he was young. These were cars designed for transporting fresh produce grown in the sunny south to
national markets, including the North and Canada.
The easy spotting feature of a “water- melon car” is the ventilator door on the sides to enable an air-flow through the car when it was loaded. The less visible spotting features of these cars are the
Farmers are transfering watermelons from trucks to ventilated box- cars in this circa 1928 photo (above). This HO scale model of ACL No. 43901, a class O-15 produce car, is a Westerfield kit modeled for circa 1931 (below). If you look closely, the watermelon load can be seen inside the ventilator door. The prototype was one of 500 cars (Nos. 43735-44234) built by Standard Steel Car in 1921 as a modifi-
MODEL PHOTOS BY THE AUTHOR
adjustable high and low ventilators in the car ends that fed the air flow. The cars were also equipped with a “normal” solid door that could be used to secure reverse shipments of northern goods back to the home carrier.
I thought it would be fun to assemble
cation to the basic USRA 40-foot boxcar design. The modifications included the ventilator door with a steel lower plate and the pair of vents in each end. Earlier ACL produce cars had typically been 36- foot steel underframe cars. Atlantic Coast Despatch was a venture of the ACL and the Pennsylvania Railroad for East Coast produce shipments. Some of these cars remained on the roster until 1959.
RAILROAD MODEL CRAFTSMAN
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