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American Railway Association Standard Box Car of 1932, The Theodore Culotta w/DJ
The American Railway Association Standard Box Car of 1932 by Theodore J Culotta
Hard Cover w/Dust jacket
267 pages
Copyright 2004
CONTENTS
Introduction8
1. The Design14
2. The Prototypes20
3. Bangor & Aroostook48
4. Canadian Pacific62
5. Central of Georgia72
6. Chesapeake & Ohio80
7. Chicago Great Western88
8. Clinchfield94
9. Delaware & Hudson100
10. Erie124
11. Gulf, Mobile & Northern132
12. Louisiana & Arkansas136
13. Maine Central140
14. Missouri Pacific Lines150
15. Mt. Vernon Car Manufacturing Co.160
16. Nacionales de Mexico164
17. Nashville, Chattanooga & St. Louis 170
18. New York, Chicago & St. Louis178
19. Norfolk Southern186
20. Seaboard Air Line194
21. Soo Line206
22. Union Pacific214
23. Warrior River Terminal216
24. Western Maryland220
Afterword232
Appendix 1 - Descriptive Analysis of the Principal Design234
Features
Appendix 2 - Action on Report of Committee on Car244
Construction
Appendix 3 - Plate C-Specification for ARA Steel Sheathed247
Box Car and Plate D-Permissible Alternates
Appendix 4 -Test of Box-Car Designs Made by ARA250
Appendix 5 -Table of 1932 ARA Standard Box Cars As-Built258
Bibliography 262
Index264
INTRODUCTION
The unveiling of the American Railway Association (ARA) Standard box car design of 1932 was a watershed event in the history of the design and construction of box cars for North American railroads. The 1932 design ushered in the era of standard house car designs that would be adopted by the majority of railroads. The significance of this design can be easily lost due to the fact that it was not built in large numbers for, nor purchased in quantities greater than one, by any of what most consider the "major" railroads (New York Central System, Pennsylvania Railroad, Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railway, Union Pacific Railroad or Southern Pacific Railroad). Ironically, because of this, the 1932 design has been relegated to what essentially amounts to "footnote" status by historians and modelers.
Prior to the First World War, there was very limited cross-pollination of freight car designs among railroads, save those few that may have been part of a group owned or controlled by one company or individual(s), such as the Harriman Lines (Union Pacific and Southern Pacific). The majority of railroads purchased freight cars of their own design and many built cars in their own shops. The cars purchased from car builders were generally of a different design than those of other railroads, resulting in a great variety and number of freight car designs.
During World War One, the government assumed control of and nationalized the railroads under the United States Railroad Administration (USRA). This resulted in the creation of standard freight car designs that were constructed in the transitional, immediate postwar period. The two designs most pertinent to this discussion are that of the forty-ton double sheathed (USRA Specification 1003-B) wood and the fifty-ton single sheathed (1001-B) composite box car designs. Both were built in large numbers and assigned to a diverse group of roads. While these designs proved to be relatively sound, the railroads were not appreciative of the government's intervention and after the war most returned to purchasing cars that suited their own tastes.
In 1923, the American Railway Association considered approval of a double sheathed box car (steel sheathing on the outside with wood sheathing on the inside) as a standard design. The recommendations of the Committee covering the standard steel box failed to receive the necessary two-thirds vote required for adoption as standard, primarily because the members could not reach agreement upon the general dimensions of the design and "design characteristics." (Railway Mechanical Engineer, Aug. 1932, p.317). Revisions were made to the design and a second ballot was favorable on all points, but "owing to a diversity of opinion in the General Committee in regard to the inside width, the recommendations were approved only for the single sheathed box cars." (1931 Car Builders' Cyclopedia, p. 103.) However, over 60,000 cars with various modifications of this design were constructed for fifteen railroads. The two most notable products of this design were the Pennsylvania Railroad's X29 and the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad's M-26 classes of box cars. These cars incorporated a center sill of two twelve-inch 40.3-pound channels joined by a large cover plate riveted to the top flanges. The side sills consisted of seven-inch 15.57-pound steel channel sections. The rest of the underframe consisted of two riveted cross-bearers that were widely spaced and two crossties on either side of the center sills located 151/2" from the center of the car. The sides consisted of five overlapping sheets of 0.11" steel riveted to three inch U-section structural posts. The car ends were comprised of two flat sheets, 1/4" on the bottom and 3/16" on the top supported by three 3" U-section vertical members in the center third of the end. The roof was made of overlapping sheets riveted to U-section carlines, although the design did allow for some alternate components, one of the chief areas of contention during discussion of the design was the limited number of options.
The following year the ARA members approved a single sheathed box car design as a standard. The car was constructed of flanged U-section structural steel members in a Pratt truss arrangement. The two variations on the design, forty and fifty-ton, were classified as 4C-XM-1 and 4D-XM-1, respectively. The design came to be referred to as the 1924 ARA Standard Box Car. It achieved limited use among railroads, with the most notable being the Louisville & Nashville, Rock Island, Chicago Great Western, Boston & Maine and the Seaboard Air Line, although the SAL did modify the design, through the addition of a fishbelly center sill to the underframe. As gaining consensus was not easy, the 1924 box car design made allowances for the use of different types of components for roofs, ends and doors. Several roads also built versions of these cars throughout the decade that used Z bar structural members (sometimes opting for a Howe truss structural design) or increased the height of the design. The Santa Fe (classes Bx-11 / 12 / 13), Southern Pacific (classes B-50-15 and -16) and Rock Island (141000142999 series) are notable examples of this type of modification.
In 1925, the ARA approved a double sheathed wood box car as a standard. These forty and fifty-ton variations were classified as 4C-XM-2 and 4D-XM-2, respectively. Again, use was limited, with the largest buyers being the Santa Fe (Bx-8/9/10), Delaware, Lackawanna & Western and Lehigh Valley. The Southern Railway and the Illinois Terminal also built over 5,000 and 200 auto cars, respectively, that were based upon this design. The Great Northern eventually became the largest buyer of cars of this design when between 1937 and 1942 it had 8,000 cars constructed to the design that incorporated an increase in inside height to 10'-0" and inside width to 9'-2", the prevailing standard during those years.
In addition to these ARA Standard designs, there were others that gained modest acceptance. The USRA steel box car design was built in large quantities by the New York Central Lines and in modest numbers by the Delaware, Lackawanna & Western, Reading and a couple of other smaller lines. A `Howe truss' single sheathed design that was an alternate arrangement of the 1924 ARA Standard was built in large numbers for the Missouri Pacific and its subsidiaries as well as for the Columbus & Greenville, Louisiana & Arkansas, Kansas City Southern, Chicago & Eastern Illinois and Georgia & Florida.
During the 1920s, these pockets of use of several designs by small numbers of large roads with several smaller roads `tagging on' to the designs seemed to indicate a shift toward standardization. Many railroads built proprietary versions of the 1924 ARA design, changing the pattern of the structural members of the sides or modifying the number of sections of structural members. Many roads also favored Z bar structural members over U-section posts. Components such as doors, roofs and ends varied considerably, as the ARA had allowed in its design. Examples of this trend can be seen in the purchases and construction of many thousands of cars by the Canadian National, St. Louis-San Francisco, Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Paul & Pacific, the Chicago & North Western, the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy, the Northern Pacific, the Wabash, the Illinois Central and the Southern.
In 1929 and 1930, the Canadian Pacific Railway took delivery of 7,500 box cars that were harbingers of the 1932 ARA design. In particular, they pioneered the use of side sill angles in conjunction with reinforcing channels under the door openings and channels at the ends of the body bolsters. These channels gave the cars the `tabbed' look that was characteristic of the 1932 ARA and subsequent derivatives of the design. However, the design also used a center sill comprised of heavy channels, as on the earlier ARA designs of the 1920s. It is likely that the Committee on Car Construction recognized the merits of the Canadian Pacific's design when developing the 1932 ARA design.
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