Re: West side lumber flat cars

The "standard" WSLC flatcars represent an evolutionaly process from the original Carter (1-16) and Hammond 17 and up) flats built 1899+ I don't think we know how many Hammond built, but suspect at some point WSLC started building their own in the style of the Carter & Hammond cars.

Those original cars were 24' 15-ton campacity cars with wood transom swing motion trucks. It appears that the Carter cars had stake pockets, the Hammond's did not. Hammond used a taller transom beam and a 4 part swing hanger while Carter Brothers used a u shaped forged hanger and a shaft.

The railroad developed the "standard" car, sometimes called the "Crawford" car using the earlier designs, addressing any weak areas. MHF reports that the flats were rebuilt in 1917-1927 and 1927-1929. Wooden flat cars in simlar use have a life expectancy of 10 to 15 years. By 1917 the orginal Carter cars would have been beyond worn out.

There is a car regester, in private hands. I was able to get information via Russ Simpson, but sadly that ave. is now closed. From that we know that car 222 in our collection was built in 1929. (we also have 205 and 308 from the Sorensen collection)

It is likely that the railroad had near if not over 300 flat cars before the arrival of the Swayne (SC&F) log cars.

The standard flat car is a really nice design... all sills (and end beam) are the same hight, and the car can be built right side up (Carter & Hammond have sills of varying heights and need to be built on their backs) All bolts (except truss rods and some air brake parts) are 3/4" making things easy. The latteral truss rods are made in three parts and can be inserted easily. Drawbars are stirup rather than pin style. Finally, there is a steel plate supporting the draft timbers. The trucks are an arch bar style, without swing motion, but in many cases using journal boxes from older trucks.

These cars were beat up in service. The railroad rebuilt (equivilent to new cars) them as needed, likely every 10 years.

Randy Hees
www.spcrr.org
www.pacificng.com
www.rypn.org