USRA Rebuilt gondolas information

[Charles Duckworth]

From Ed Hawkins..

I have a Mopac photo of MP gondola #71100 with shop stencil “DES. 7-49” and
“built 9-19”, thus documenting the car was one of the original USRA gons. The
car was completely rebuilt with steel sides and has 8 vertical side posts
(9-panels). There is no diagonal bracing. The photo is a broadside so I
cannot see what type end it has (Murphy or Dreadnaught). The car retains its
original Andrews trucks but has been equipped with AB brakes. Capacity was
1885 cu. ft. as compared to the USRA capacity of 1770 cu. ft. See below for
more information on these cars.

The 73501-74250 series cars were built in 1925 and were not quite the same as
the USRA cars. The composite superstructure was the same as the USRA cars,
but the 1925-built cars had wine door locks along the side sill on the middle
5 panels (photo in 1928 Car Builder’s Cyclopedia-page 201). As far as I can
tell, there were at least 235 of these cars rebuilt as all steel cars
sometime between 1/52 and 4/55. However, I don’t have any ORERs between these
dates to show the history. I do not have any photos of rebuilt cars from this
series.

The following list provides number of rebuilt USRA gons that were “All Steel,
Fixed Ends” cars in service per ORERs (70351-73500 series). Note the January
1952 ORER shows 389 in service, so the rebuilding was occurring over the
period 1949-1951. Anyone with other ORERs is welcome to help refine these
numbers to define the maximum number of rebuilt cars.

April 1951 – 337 (47 additional composite cars and 6 modified with coke racks)
January 1952 – 389 (no composite cars left)
April 1955 – 378 cars
April 1957 – 77 cars
January 1959 – 5 cars

Thus, the year 1951 ended the time when the MP USRA composite gondolas were
in service. Hope this helps.
Ed Hawkins

[Author]

Posts