Freight Car Department Report

From Rail & Wire Issue 185, September 2000

By Bob Kutella

TTX 470902, a trailer-on-flatcar (TOFC) flatcar was donated to the Museum by the TTX Corporation. The car is equipped with special fold-down hitches that attach to the trailer's fifth-wheel (trailer hitch) socket and fasten the trailer to the flatcar. The car dates to the beginning of the piggyback era. Photo by Greg Heier.

Right at the end of the year and just in time to be included in our updated roster, IRM received two new (to us) freight cars.

TTX 470902
The first car is 74' class F39C TOFC flatcar, TTX 470902. The car was restored and donated by TTX Corporation (formerly known as Trailer Train), owner and operator of the car from 1956.

The car was built by the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy Railroad in its Havelock Shops in 1955. The Burlington Route used the car for only one year before it was sold to Trailer Train. Sixty similar cars were built, 10 by the CB&Q and 50 by the Pennsylvania Railroad. At the time it was donated, it was thought to be the last first generation TTX intermodal flatcar.

The frame is a unique, one-piece fishbelly casting by General Steel Castings, a major supplier to the railroad industry. It has a wood deck, two trailer hitches, side rails, bridge ramps, dual hand brakes and roller bearings on CB&Q No. 95 Ride Control trucks. It weighs 76,300 pounds; empty the car has a capacity of 125,000 pounds in two trailers.

Pan Am Products tank car AMOX 9499 was donated by BP (British Petroleum), the new owner of Amoco Oil. The car was restored to its (approximate) 1935 appearance. Photos by Greg Heier.

AMOX 9499
The second new car is a 1912-vintage tank car donated by BP (British Petroleum), a successor to Amoco. The 34' long car was built by American Car & Foundry. It has unusual elevated running boards rather than the frame-level running boards used on other tank cars of the period.

The car's empty weight is 39,500 pounds and it can carry 8,000 gallons, a rather unusual size for the construction period. It runs on the now-rare Vulcan trucks.

As restored by BP prior to donation, it is lettered for Pan-Am Products. Previous markings included Pan-Am Southern Corporation, 1953-1963 (PASX 108), Root Refineries (1922-1953), and possibly Mexican Petroleum (MPLX) and Pan- American Petroleum. More research is needed into the history of this car.

After some years looking like a poor cousin, Industrial Molasses GATX 75470 has a new coat of green paint courtesy of the Museum's Freight Car Department. Photo by Greg Heier.

Originally, the lettering was stenciled onto the molasses car, but making new stencils would be as time-consuming as painting the lettering by hand. Photo by Greg Heier.

CAR RESTORATION: INDUSTRIAL MOLASSES GATX 75470
In September and October, Curator Bob Kutella's small crew repainted GATX 75470, a car formerly leased to Industrial Molasses Corporation for hauling molasses used in animal feeds.

The car was built in 1960 by General American Transportation Co. in Sharon, Pennsylvania. It is a single shell, atmospheric (non-pressurized) tank for hauling nonflammable liquids. The 37' long car weighs 53,000 pounds empty and can carry 140,000 pounds or 10,014 gallons. It has internal heating coils to liquefy the molasses for unloading, and has a fullaccess dome platform. It rides on Barber 52A friction-bearing trucks.

This car was received in an as-is condition, and during 2000 it was completely restored to operating condition, the last action being the repainting of the body. This car should make an interesting addition to our demonstration freight train.

TRACK SPACE MONEY STILL NEEDED
Our members have been very generous in donating track storage space fees. As you may know, the Museum has set a $75 per running foot track charge for rolling stock, this being an approximation of the cost of building new track for yards in the year 2000. This means that each new piece of equipment must have money donated for its track storage fund. For example, a 40' boxcar (measured over the couplers) needs $3,000 in track storage fees before any restoration is paid for!

Fund-raising efforts in 2000 have brought in enough money to pay track storage fees for our Rock Island wood automobile car, Great Northern tank car X1390, and Belt Railway of Chicago caboose 223.

So, we have gone over 175 feet on our present track space thermometer. But no sooner than we start catching up, we receive new cars and go right back in the hole. So, starting with the new year, we're going to start a new thermometer and see if our patrons are as generous as they were last year.