Figure 34

The caption in figure 34 states the pictured car was built by Greenville in 1974.  The car is GBW 208, built by Greenville in September, 1963.  See http://www.greenbayroute.com/orerdetail.htm .What created the obvious credibility issue to me is the existence of pre-1966 safety appliances (a running board plus high mounted brakewheel and full-height ladders).  That made me curious enough to search for a roster showing the actual build date.

Nice work Richard. Good

Nice work Richard. Good article

Great Article

Thank-you for taking the time to compile and publish this article about American freight car ends.

Im sure serious readers will use this information to help them review the accuracy of their freight car roster and scrutinize future purchases and it is hoped that manufacturers will improve the accuracy of their products by using articles like this during the design and development of their products. (I used a previous article on freight car trucks to review and correct my roster of freight cars).

Freight car roofs, safety equipment and doors would make for very interesting reading too.

Best regards;

Steven

Freight Car Ends

A HO scale modeler for 54 years this is the first and most comprehensive I've come across. The illustrious Southern Pacific guru Tony Thompson did cover the steel ends pretty well in his SP box car and PFE articles in RMC. Jolly good show! 

P-S ends with six indentations in the hat section

Great Article

As a person who has not had the opportunity to see a lot of real trains, I never new there was such variety in boxcars. Thank you very much for the informative article. Rich.

Probably the best article

Probably the best article that I have read in a long time. Thank you for doing it.

Excellent article

Richard - thanks for taking the time to pull all this info  - and pictures! - together. Saved for future reference.

Clark Cone

Glad you found the article

Glad you found the article informative. Similar reviews covering roofs and doors are in the works.

Reference material

Thank You Richard!

This is really the single most useful piece on car construction I've seen. The photos are clear and comprehensible. You are to be commended for Obsessive Compulsive Behavior above and beyond the call of duty. I will use this article again and again. It rates right up there with making super trees as one of the top two pieces I've been able to readily adapt to my layout .

Pete V.

Yes, a VERY useful article.

Yes, a VERY useful article. Thanks, Richard!

Of course it also drives home the fact that my chosen prototype (the Pere Marquette) had an unusual fondness for oddball ends on its boxcars, such as the Hutchins four-rib ends and the vertical-rib Vulcan ends.

For the Vulcan-ended cars, PM diagrams simply refer to them as Murphy ends, though the diagrams and photos show the vertical ribs.

Aside from the PM, the only other roads I can think of, off-hand, that used the Hutchins four-rib ends would be the Ann Arbor, the Piedmont & Northern (which I think was using second-hand ex-PM cars, anyway), and a small series of Southern boxcars.

I could really use some castings for both these kinds of ends. The old Westerfield Hutchins ends were for a low-roofed car, lower than what the PM and the Ann Arbor used, possibly the Southern's version.

Very informative

I really found this article to be a huge help. Steam-era boxcar ends have been a bit of a mystery to me, but this article was clearly written and abundantly illustrated. 

Thank you!

Karl

"Steam-era boxcar ends have

One of the things I liked about O scale was that Walther's  and other early manufacturers offered many of these boxcars ends along with cast doors and other parts  for the scratch builder or kit basher. At one time I had a large collection of car ends nailed up on a wall just because they looked cool with all their variations....DaveB

I agree with the positive comments

Others have said what I would have about the writing. Great job, I can't begin to imagine the time and effort to make a great reference as this. Will print it out to keep near my work bench.

Bob Thomason