had slatted floors, allowing the bark and debris to drop clear of the car. Many cars also had end bulkheads sheeted over, but open ends were common. In ad- dition, some orders apparently came with rotary slack adjusters (or perhaps were added after de- livery at some point), but the car I drew (pages 62–63) lacked this device.
Although the inside lengths
can vary in the equipment regis- ter and diagram books, the car can be basically considered to have an inside length of 38-feet, 0-inches. The car bodies Gen- eral Steel supplied remained essentially unchanged over the course of the cars’ production life. One change I noted was the number and spacing of the floor supports cast into the top of the car sides varied between orders. The car I drew has 14 of these supports per side (which seems most common), but cars were also seen with six and eight. Over time, several owners added bulkhead extensions to increase the car’s capacity, which are vis- ible in some of the accompany- ing pictures. Quite a number of these
cars were built, beginning with GM&O’s initial delivery in De- cember 1950. Not all informa- tion is known, especially build dates for some orders. In several cases, we don’t know where the cars were built. Also, the mystery of what happened to the Frisco series 5200–5299 delivered in 1953–54 greatly complicated the production list. In 1962, the cars disappeared only to be replaced by regular wallboard flats (with bodies supplied by GSC) having identical numbers. The theory is these cars were traded in, and GSC returned them as differ- ent cars (pulpwood versus regu- lar bulkhead flat). The thought is that GSC elected to resell the Frisco castings to other roads. This theory is reinforced by a Western Maryland car known to have a build date of March
1953 but a “new” date of August 1962. If true, then production of “real” new cars stopped in 1957, and further deliveries were tak- en from this pool of used car castings. This is reflected in the notes in the production list. Another unknown at present
are the Corinth & Counce cars (CCR 2000–2024). I’ve not been able to locate photos of these, so they may or may be not be cast pulpwood cars of GSC design (the road’s 45-foot cars were). In any event, cars tended to remain in centralized, local service. It would have been rare indeed to spot one of them far from their homes. It is unlikely any have re- mained in service up to the pres- ent time because of mandated age retirements. General Steel also supplied
finished pulpwood cars, but GSC is not known to have di- rectly constructed 38-foot inside length cars. GSC didn’t begin to furnish completed cars until about 1962, and by that time, few orders for 38-foot cars re- mained. All pulpwood cars that came directly from GSC were of the 70-ton, 45-foot inside length variety. We’ll be providing draw- ings of that car soon. The car drawn this month
is based on the Atlantic Coast Line’s 70200–70349 series of class W-5 cars. The railroad put these cars into service with its T-9-M class of ASF A-3 Ride Control captive roller bearing trucks. As the cars migrated over to Seaboard Coast Line, shop forces removed the bear- ing retaining bolts as the cars came due for shopping. Howev- er, the sideframe patterns could be seen until the end of the cars’ lives. This set of cars had two different bolster designs. The car I have drawn is based on ACL 70230–70349. The other cars had a slightly different bol- ster outline. In both cas- es, the geometry change isn’t vis- ible when viewed trackside. I am indebted
to Denis Blake, Paul Faulk, and Larry
Also
thanks to Eric Neubauer
Gools-
by for their as- sistance.
for
taking the time to create a Gen- eral Steel Cast- ings production list.
AUGUST 2015 61
Open Ends A mystery car: WM’s ten cars are likely to have been acquired via GSC from a pool of used cast- ings furnished when the Frisco returned its cars to be exchanged for regular wallboard flats. — WM photo, author’s collec- tion
Hand Brake detail shown on a GSC pulpwood car at Water- ville, Maine, on Decem- ber, 9, 1989. — George Melvin photo
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