Earl Wrote:
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> When the pipe rush hit, a bunch of high side gons
> were turned into idler flat cars by simply
> removing the sides and ends. A bit later sections
> of rail were bolted to the deck to keep the car
> from folding in half - with debatable results.
> Until they got to this point, it was not uncommon
> for the the rear helper to be cut in ahead of a
> string of cut-down gon idler flats. I've seen
> this in several shots and in some of the film I
> worked with Greg on. Once they got the idler
> flats beefed up a bit, this was less of an issue,
> but it did happen.
>
> 3-engine freights with two engines on the point
> and one ahead of the caboose was standard practice
> for many years when traffic was heavy.

I recently spent a week working on, around, and under 9569 at the Friends Work Session C. It had the rails (well, will have, decking won't go on 'till next year), but I couldn't conceive an attachment on the outer edges that would effectively handle the train line stresses imposed in the car's center. The whole contraption is an interesting study in railcar structure; with the trusses (especially the center ones) arranged to take the stress of puling, I can easily see how pushing, particularly in a train, could convince the car to collapse; methinks it would twist with the sills, rather than fold, but what do I know. I'm a software person, so take all this with a grain of salt...

An interesting, if confounding, combination of wood and steel structures are those flatcars. By the way, I cannot commend working on a Friends car restoration session enough - best week of dirty labor I've ever spent!