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American Railroad Freight Car, The wood car era to the coming of steel SC
The American Railroad Freight Car By John White Jr
644 Pages
Hard Cover with dust jacket
Copyright 1993
From the wood car era to the coming of steel.
Table of contents:
Preface IX
1 Parade of the Cars 3
CREATING THE AGE OF CHEAP TRANSPORTATION
Traffic and Tonnage 8
Traffic Promotion 17
FREIGHT TRAIN OPERATIONS
The Divisional System 53
The Interchange of Cars 55
Inventory Management 62
Train Size 66
Train Crews 70
THE FLEET
Makeup of the Fleet 120
Costs 123
Private Freight Cars 126
Car Design 134
Types of Traffic 19
Rates, Rebates, and Regulation 35
Schedules 80
Communications 83
Obstacles to Smooth Running 89
Yards 104
Train Speeds 117
The Car-Building Industry 138
The Assembly Process 148
Repair Shops 152
2 The Pioneers: American Freight Cars before 1870 155
The Earliest Examples 155
Innovations 158
Closed Cars 163
The Introduction of Eight-Wheelers 164
Specialization 169
Construction Details 176
Other Special-Purpose Cars 184
The Photographic Record 190
3 Cars for General Merchandise, 1870 to 1899 192
The Debate over Size 194
The Push for Lightweight Construction 202
Construction Details 206
Flatcars 236
Cost Questions 238
4 Cars for Food 243
Livestock Cars 244
Refrigerator Cars 270
Milk, Dairy, and Heater Cars 284
Ventilated Cars 290
Tank Cars for Special Foodstuffs 301
5 Cars for Bulk Cargoes 303
Coal Cars: Jimmies and Other Four-Wheelers 303
Coal Cars: Eight-Wheel Gondolas and Hoppers 312
Side-Dump Coal Cars 348
Ore and Coke Cars 349
Tank Cars 359
6 Cars for Special Shipments 380
Jumbo Flatcars 380
Piggybacking and Containerization 390
Combination Freight Cars 396
The Elusive "Standard" Car 402
The Caboose 409
7 Freight Car Technology 433
Trucks 433
Running-Gear Subassemblies 476
Couplers and Draft Gears 490
Brakes 527
8 Early Iron and Steel Cars 547
The Pros and Cons of Metal Construction 547
Early Iron Cars 550
The Steel-Car Revolution 580
Appendix A: Biographical Sketches of Railroad Car Builders 599
Appendix B: Chronology 608
Further Reading 613
Notes 615
Index 635
In this sequel to his best-selling American Railroad Passenger Car, White forever changes the freight car's lowly image. Another landmark book in the history of American railroads and American technology-lavishly illustrated and the result of more than a decade of research-it brings to light important new information about the rail industry of nineteenth-century America, the ingenuity of American invention, and the development of highly specialized rail cars to move products and resources around the nation.
Including hundreds of historical photographs and detailed blueprints, The American Railroad Freight Car highlights the sophistication and expertise that marked the development of freight cars in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Because so many cars were needed to handle America's growing freight traffic, White explains, they had to be cheap and light, yet durable. White focuses on innovations among the most common varieties-box, flat, gondola, and hopper cars-but he also describes more exotic classes such as refrigerator and jumbo flatcars. A special section is devoted to the train crew's famous rolling home, the caboose.
Along with an overview of freight transportation's historical importance, White offers detailed accounts of technological developments affecting wheels, axles, draft gears, couplers, and brakes. He also examines lesser known aspects of everyday freight service such as yard management, train operations, and the origins of the interchange system. The final chapter deals with early iron and steel cars, bringing the story of the freight car up to the modern era of railroading. Like White's other works, The American Railroad Freight Car is the definitive book on its subject.
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