Nostalgia & History > When did the 50 foot boxcar era begin?

a question i cant answer when asked today

when did the first 50 foot long box come to being and what railroad inaugurated it?

i presume 1955 or a bit later?

That sounds about right.

bakersfielddave Wrote:
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> a question i cant answer when asked today
>
> when did the first 50 foot long box come to being
> and what railroad inaugurated it?
>
> i presume 1955 or a bit later?


Guessing the late 50's or early 60's... New automobiles were shipped in 50 foot boxcar for example

My 1937 Milwaukee equipment diagram book of 1937 catalogs 50 foot outside frame wood single-sheathed cars with builders date of 1927 and 1929, double sheath cars with no construction date but lettered CM&PS which would be pre-1927, steel side cars dated 1937, and rib-side steel cars also dated 1937.

My 1909 Car Builders Dictionary shows wood frame (truss rods) 50 foot box cars for the CB&Q, and steel frame wood side cars for the Erie.

-John Stein aka Larry Doyle

Weren't there 50 foot cars back in about 1910 for shipping wagons and barrels?
I'm thinking of Santa Fe's Furniture cars.

Were Rubber Tire cars 50 Ft?

PHall Wrote:

> Weren't there 50 foot cars back in about 1910 for
> shipping wagons and barrels?
> I'm thinking of Santa Fe's Furniture cars.

Santa Fe built their first 50-foot, double-door "furniture" cars in 1898, the Fe-E and Fe-F classes consisting of 100 cars each. Other classes of 50-foot, double-door cars followed in the first decades of the 20th century, but the railroad didn't have any 50-foot, single-door Bx-class boxcars until 1940, when the company shops started rebuilding double-door Fe-U's into single-door Bx-35's.

bakersfielddave Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> a question i cant answer when asked today
>
> when did the first 50 foot long box come to being
> and what railroad inaugurated it?
>
> i presume 1955 or a bit later?


As some have mentioned, the first 50-footers date back to the early part of the last century. If you're asking when they became "common", they really started to replace 40-footers as the new standard for boxcars around the mid-1950s. The % of 50-footers grew steadily after that. UP traffic samples I have from around 1956 show the mix between 40/50-footers at around 80%/20%.

Take care,

Mark