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| Richard Stewart shared |
Raymond Storey posted three photos with the comment: "A 70 foot specialty box car..Photo credit Mike Breski."
Bruce Smith PRR class X30, generally assigned to American LaFrance, Elmira, New York, for delivery of ladder trucks. It must have been interesting seeing this in a typical train of the era with predominantly 40 foot boxcars.
Eric Kuroski also posted the second and third with the comment: "Pennsylvania x30 box car built for shipping fire trucks."
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| 2 Steve Marshall posted Shared from the SPAMMFA page. Original info on post: Caption from the July, 1950 issue of FIREMEN magazine: "This Milwaukee Journal photo shows a 75-ft. double banked, American LaFrance tractor drawn aerial ladder coming out of a Pennsylvania Railroad boxcar for delivery to the Fire Department of Milwaukee, Wisconsin. This boxcar, 70 ft. long, said to be the largest made, was built for carrying fire apparatus. Tom Davidson Posted PRR class X30 number 59861 was a one-of-a-kind car, assigned to dedicated service delivering new fire apparatus from American LaFrance in Elmira, NY. Steve Marshall: I saw one responding to a fire call back in 81 or so by my house. There was as steep hill they had to get a running start on so when they made the turn, the tiller tilted up on one wheel and it left a skid mark on the road as they turned, flinging equipment all over the road. I was tiller qualified as a firefighter. A totally different animal compared to driving just about any other vehicle. John Wood: Didn’t the steering wheel at the rear work in the ‘opposite direction’? To go right, you turned the wheel counter clockwise? Jeff Brandenburg: John Wood, all tillers I drove were standard steering. Steer left and the wheels (tail) went left. Had to think backwards for doing turns. It became 2nd nature with experience. I built Seagraves back in mid 2000s Mike Breski postedMike Breski shared |
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Bob Chaparro posted three links to photos:
Photos: Unloading A Fire Truck (1954)
Photos from the Montana Memory Project:
C&O end-door boxcar at Missoula, MT.
Bob Chaparro
Hemet, CA
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| Mark Hershoren posted Coldwater Michigan fire department unloading a new American LaFrance. Robert Lee Dussia collection. Jack Franks shared
I remember when Elkhart had one like it.
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| Miguel Campos posted Greg Halpin shared Greg Halpin There are more photos by the original poster. It appears that they drove the fire apparatus out of the car onto a TTX flat car. Not sure how they got the rig off of the flat car. Robert Boguski Nogales is in Arizona Greg Halpin It is an American LaFrance 900 series. Thomas C. Ayers Here's the link to an article about shipping American-LaFrance-Foamite fire trucks that was published in the May 1955 issue of "Pennsy" magazine, pages 26-27 ~> http://www.rrpicturearchives.net/archiveThumbs.aspx... |
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| One of the 12 photos posted by Miguel Campos 1972 a new firetruck. Nogales az. Fire department |
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| Andrew Keeney shared [Case had their own boxcars designed to ship their tractors, plows, etc.] |
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| Carl Venzke posted
Anthony R De Seta shared
Jerry Britton Note the "Return When Empty to PRR Toledo O". Car was in dedicated service with a factory in Toleda. Suggests special equipment.
Mark Massa Why the "triple twos" chalked up on the X31?
Ralph A Heiss Chalk marks were typically made by yard clerks and referred to routing.
Carl Venzke post
Unloading some Ford tractors 😉 Late 40's or early 50's.
Robert Bull Carmichael Those are 2n's.
Logan Staal Tractors rode in boxcars due to multiple wheel arrangements on the front end and tall sizes for larger units, however they still had the automotive marking on the side to designate steel floors or heavy wooden floors. Some boxcars were still being produced with cheaper wooden floors such as pine.
Ritch Williams Car Model X31f
PRR Road Numbers 81200-81889 XM XAR XMR XR
Type,
X31f - 40'0" turtleback round roof all steel boxcar
Center section of roof raised for carrying jeeps
690 cars built. WW2 production. So that Narrows delivery time to 44-47. A 2N
Jeff Mikus Those are definitely 2N’s. Generator location is pre-1950 but that bolt pattern on the wheels is pre-48, leaving out the 8N. The box car appears newer than 42 so that would eliminate 9N’s as well.
Peter Dudley Ford Motor Company's tractor plant was located west of Greenfield Village in Dearborn MI.
Ford was one of Pennsylvania Railroad's best customers, as a result of PRR's ownership of Detroit, Toledo & Ironton Railroad (DTI), which Henry Ford sold to PRR in 1929 (good timing).
Peter Dudley shared
Mason Christensen The Ford tractor plant was only open for a few years in West Dearborn in the 1910s until production moved to the Rouge Plant.
Brent Kneebush Fordsons were made in Dearborn. By the Time the tractors in the Photo were produced which are 9ns or 2ns production had long been at the Rouge Complex. Being 9ns or 2ns this photo is between 1939 and 1947. 8ns came out in 1947 and had a two tone red and grey paint scheme. These are solid grey.
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| Edward Jarolin shared Dc Sharp How about those hats! Gene Herman posted White Coach Wednesday ~ A quartet of SF Muni and PUC suits hatch a new 798..... Michael Dolgushkin Those posed shots always crack me up. Kind of like the ribbon cuttings with huge scissors, or the groundbreakings with oversize shovels. And these guys in their baggy suits. Priceless! |
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| Robert Warrick commented on a post |
Ted Hazelton posted three photos with the comment: "Years ago in the late 1940's through the 1950's, railroads used to have boxcars with end doors for hauling long loads like this fire truck pictured here. I found one of these cars in Independence, Iowa a week ago. It's now used as a storage building."
Ted Hazelton shared
William Hayslip: They were built to carry automobiles. Older automobile cars had double doors on the side. End doors made it much easier to load and unload. Also some were used to carry scenery from plays to their next appointment.
Bill Hadden: That one looks like a horse van. CP still has one that is used for the RCMP musical ride.
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Scott Thomas shared three photos with the comment:
Matt Smith posted three photos with the comment: "How did I miss these from the Illinois Digital Archives - Pantagraph Collection???? Bloomington IL, NKP Freight House unloading Army Truck 6/13/ 1940"
New engine delivery by rail....Lets DISCUSS! Here in NW Pennsylvania, the roads were really bad until the interstate came through in late 70, so new apparatus arrived via Erie Railroad. Here are three arrivals. We also had several major fires to our south and north in the 1930s & 40s where they ran our city's ladder truck to the rail yard, put it on a flat car and responded via locomotive! No pictures of those unfortunately. We had a large & active rail yard here so getting a loco manned and fired up was easy.
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| Carl Venzke posted WC56 Dodge Command Car [Larger side doors helped the loading and unloading.] |
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| Carl Venzke posted Southern's Big Boy - Ten-foot-wide doors make for quick loading and unloading of the "Big Boy." In this case, mechanical handling equipment that was easily maneuvered through . [Big side doors helped load and unload other things as well.] |
Matt Smith posted three photos with the comment: "How did I miss these from the Illinois Digital Archives - Pantagraph Collection???? Bloomington IL, NKP Freight House unloading Army Truck 6/13/ 1940"
Note how they had coupled a flatcar next to the boxcar so that they could wheel the truck straight out onto the flat car and then maneuver it across the steel plates to the dock.
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| Henry Rodriguez posted |
And some vehicles like ag equipment and trucks were not covered during the trip.
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| Randy Alan posted These are Consolidated Freightways (CF) tractors on a Grand Trunk Western flatbed. I don't know the make of the tractors, nor the model year. Trucks like these would never fit in/on an autorack. Tony Creamer: Actually, they'd fit in the uni-level auto racks that were made quite easily. In that era, trucks were only 90 inches wide, and only the newest ones were 96 inches wide. Height wouldn't be a problem, either, even with the stacks as they are. They'd still only be 13 ft 6 inches, which will easily fit in the uni-level auto racks. with the stacks removed, they'd only be about 10 ft tall, maybe 11 ft, depending on the specific truck model. Stuart Chirls: Those are White-Freightliner SD (single drive axle) cabs. Eric White: With an ACI label, it's post '67. Mike Budde: This photo has shown up in the past and it was determined that these cabs were being backhauled by rail. You can see the road spray on the cabs, frames and wheels. |
Boy, no wonder so much of the rail-system was abandoned in the last 20th century...
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