Nostalgia & History > question for freight car experts

I was interested in background on a couple of pieces of rolling stock. First is/was this CP
box lettered for International of Main Division a common car? I can't recall seeing others.

Keith A

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Second is this super size center sill MD&W 1011. I shot it in the Vancouver,WA area in
March or 1981. I don't recall ever seeing a double size lumber car such as this before
or since, and this is lumber country. The weight loaded must have taxed lesser built
r-o-w's. Is this series still in service?

Keith A

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CP had a few hundred U.S. built PS-1's for international service that were lettered "International of Maine Division." There may also have been a few of other car types.

MDW 1011 was the only car of its type in existence back in 1981, close to when this photo was taken. It looks awfully long, but its inside length of 82 feet was only slightly longer than the 73-foot center-partition cars of today. It must not have been as tall. Also, it would appear that the center divider was not a structural member of the car--in other words, it had an underframe to help support the load. The capacity of this car was shown as 181000 pounds. I would assume that the gross weight of the car was the same as any "100-ton" car, 263,000 pounds.

As for the "International of Maine" cars, the series they were in was 268800-269999. I remember seeing somewhere that all (1200) of these were lettered this way.