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The question of the trucks is intriguing, and the idea that trucks came from older express boxcars is particularly so. I wonder if we could develop enough of a photo database of different numbers of these cars to either confirm or refute the truck origins? The diagrams for these cars specify that 135-159 had trucks matching General Steel Casting Drawing 30370, while cars 160-184 had trucks matching GSC Drawing 32595.
Per Ed Hawkins in Railway Prototype Cyclopedia #6, boxcars 86150-86174 and 88300-88324 were modified by Sedalia in 1942 for box-express service, getting Allied full cushion trucks. The cars were rebuilt and renumbered circa 12-1958, becoming 4300-4324 and 4325-4349, both series getting GSC trucks in the process. So far, I have not found a diagram for the 4300 series box-express cars, which might help answer this question if truck details are specified.
Regarding the number of these cars converted to something other than tool cars, here is another one, in the later UP version of M/W colors. Its not legible in this view, but on the other end of the car it appears to be stenciled “Dining Car.”
And, for those who have forgotten, these cars did actually exist in colors other than faded blue, tuscan, rust, silver or green… as the photo of car 159 southbound on the GM&O at Joliet in 1967 confirms.
Bill Pollard
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