MoPac USRA gon

[David Boeschen]

This photo was posted on STMFC earlier today.

https://www.loc.gov/pictures/resource/fsa.8a03846/

This is a Library of Congress posting, labeled ‘Unloading coal’ but several of the posters have noted that it’s undoubtedly cinders or possibly gravel. Since the embankment that the car is on has a good growth of vegetation which has been trimmed straight back on either side, my thought is that this is perhaps filling a washout or trying to widen the embankment at this point.

The car number could perhaps be 72880. At all events, from the 70501-73500 (3000 cars when new), USRA gons built in late 1919. The brake gear looks like a ratchet type, but this is a broadside shot and it’s a little hard to tell. A diagram of these cars is in the MPHS Freight Car Diagrams 1900-1951 book, page 126, which calls the handbrake ‘AAR power’. Note that a number of these cars were rebuilt to all-steel superstructure later, as shown on page 128.

I doubt there is anything about this photo that gives away the location, but ideas are welcome.

RG7

[Charles Duckworth]

Ron
The posting on the steam freight car group said it’s Omaha in 1938.

[anonymous]

How do I find and join STMFC?

[David Boeschen]

Start here.

https://groups.io/groups

Establish a login and password, then you should be able to search for this group. I subscribe to this one (1900-ish to 1960), BBFCL (1960 to 1985-ish), MFCL (after 1980s) (not that interesting to me in terms of modeling, but it’s still freight cars), PCL, and a couple others. Some of the active members of this group are on these also.

RG7

[Author]

Posts