The (C&A) Chicago & Alton Railroad Freight Cars Page:
Welcome to the Chicago & Alton Freight Cars Page. Here we will present a collection of images of freight cars of the Chicago & Alton Railroad. These images will be presented in numerical order of the road number. The purpose is to present information helpful the freight car modeler or historian. Submissions are always welcome.
The issue of which reporting marks should be used to denote Chicago and Alton cars needs to be addressed. The C&A was bought by the B&O in 1931 and operated seperately. It was released from the B&O in 1942. The C&A was bought outright by the GM&O on May 31, 1947 and absorbed into its operations quite quickly. It appears that the C&A reporting mark was assigned to it until 1942 when it was reorganized and became the Alton Railroad and its reporting mark technically became A. However they were in the habit of just spelling out ALTON on the side of their freight cars, so many people assumed that that was their reporting mark. For the purpose of this site, I will use C&A as the reporting mark for the freight cars and locomotives of this railroad until it was merged into the GM&O.
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