Wooden Box cars on a 1959 railroad

[OldGuyHO]

I bought a couple of wooden side box cars in with the usual post war boxes that i purchased for my model railroad. My model year is 1959.

I'm debating as to what to do with them:

1) Heavily weather but keep them in revenue service, perhaps for a specific industry on the downturn.
2) Derelict weather them and show them abandoned.
3) Other

Anyone have any suggestions? Examples? Ideas or opinions?

 

[montanan]

Depending on the railroad, wooden box cars were still in use into the 70's in interchange service. The great Northern was using them right up to the BN merger. No problem running them in 1959.

I model 1957 and use mine to haul grain from grain elevators which was a common practice at the time. Grain doors were installed and grain was loaded on the cars and shipped to customers. Unloading was a time consuming job.


Their last gasp was probably when they were put into service as MOW cars.

 

[dave1905]

Wood sheathed cars with steel underframes were made up through the 1920's and then again around the 1940's (WWII). A freight car was good for 40 years without rebuilding so a car made in 1925 would be good through 1965 at least. The key is whether it had a steel or truss rod underframe. Steel underframe its an older car probably not a class A car, probably not for shipments that require a clean, watertight, no holes in the floor shipment. The LVR car is based on a Great Northern car that was a steel car sheathed with wood to show the GN lumber industry customers the GN supported them. You can see the tips of the steel truss in the car walls projecting under the sheathing onto the car side sills. the 10'6" inside height pegs it as a "modern" 40 ft boxcar. The Depression era USRA cars would be 9'-10' IH cars.

 

[JWhite]

The IC ran single sheath wood boxcars into the 1970s. There were a lot of wood sided cars still in service on various railroads in 1959. A little research should be able to match up your cars with a railroad that was still running them.

 

[Iron Horseman]

I bought a couple of wooden side box cars in with the usual post war boxes that i purchased for my model railroad. My model year is 1959.

I'm debating as to what to do with them:

Run them. I remember seeing plenty of wooden box cars all the way through the 1960s even into the early 1970s. The weren't all that dilapidated either. I believe they disappeared about the same time the brakeman roof walks became illegal. Probably not worth the retro fit.

 

[Red Oak & Western]

Run them. According to the 1954 Official Register, The C&O owned 544 steel underframe wood side boxcars. That was just the first big name RR I looked at.