D&RGW 68000-69899:
D&RGW 68000-68399 9-10/1939 D&RGW 68400-68899 10/1940 D&RGW 68900-69399 3-4/1941 D&RGW 69400-69899 2/1942
These 40'-6", 60-ton AAR design box cars were built by Pressed Steel Car Co. as above. They featured 12-panel riveted sides, 4/5 Dreadnaught Ends, Murphy raised panel roofs, straight side sills, Duryea cushioned underframes, 10'-4" inside height and 3840 ft3 capacity.
The first three series of the cars originally had Youngstown doors and the last series came with Superior doors. Some cars later received replacement 5-panel Superior doors. Cars built in 1939 came with wood running boards and the balance came with a variety of different steel running boards. Due to the extra 4" of height (as compared to the 1937 AAR box car), this resulted in a large flat area at the top of each end.
Photo by: Michael Palmieri
D&RGW:
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Michael Palmieri |
Soldier Summit, UT; 08/10/1975 |
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Craig Walker |
Salt Lake City, UT; 06/27/1982 |
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Matt Herson |
Salt Lake City, UT; 09/05/1983 |
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Jerome Lachaussee |
Pascagoula, MS; 07/02/1958 |
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Steve Vincent |
Salt Lake City, UT; 10/02/1977 |
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Steve Vincent |
Salt Lake City, UT; 10/02/1977 |
Many thanks to Ed Hawkins of the Yahoo STMFC discussion group for his assistance with the history of these cars.
"When built the cars were painted freight car brown with white stencils. A builder's photo of 68299 appears in the 1940, 1943, and 1946 Car Builders' Cyclopedias. Some of these cars were converted to insulated "Cookie Box" cars (see RP CYC Vol. 5, page 1) in the 1950s and painted aluminum. By around 1956, some cars received yellow (orange?) & aluminum sides with black ends and black stencils (basically the same scheme applied to the AC&F-built welded 50' cars in 1956). Bob's Photo offers a few good photographs of these cars. W.C. Whittaker also took photos of these cars, however, I don't know who currently owns those negatives. Jay Williams offers 60024 in the Cookie Box scheme ca. 1954.""Even though there were 1,900 of the cars built for Rio Grande, there hasn't been much coverage of them in the railroad press that I'm aware of. Using the C&BT kit might work, but it would be a stretch in my opinion. InterMountain would be a likely candidate if models of these cars would ever be made in plastic. I'm not aware of any cast urethane kits. It would be a good car for either Sunshine or Speedwitch Media to produce. Does anyone know of any existing models? Regards - Ed Hawkins"
The cars converted into "Cookie Box" cars were renumbered (along with four cars from the D&RGW 67500-67999 series) into the D&RGW 60000-60076 series.
