N&W Boxcars in Grain Service in Columbus

Tue Dec 30 22:15:17 EST 2014

When I was at Shaffers Crossing Car Department 1959-1961 we would classify empty box cars according to condition for various destinations.  A  class B car might be marked for the Warehouse, which was the Roanoke Freight House.  A little better car might be classed as B1 for Buchanan, cement bag loading.  Class A1 boxcars went to places like Saltville for baking soda loading, or Winston Salem or Durham for Cigarettes.  One year we were instructed to mark a 
bunch of class A cars for “Grain”, meaning they’d be sent west and distributed accordingly.  But our clerk asked the question “where the hell is Grain?”

I don’t know if he ever found out.

EdKing

From: NW Mailing List 
Sent: Tuesday, December 30, 2014 8:28 PM
To: NW Mailing List 
Subject: Re: N&W Boxcars in Grain Service in Columbus

Gordon, your stories always add great context. Thanks!

>From the steam era freight car list, I received two responses that arrived at approximately the same dates. I'm pasting one of the responses inline here:

These appear to be newly shopped three musketeers. The paint has shine: notice the reflection on the upper edges of the panels on the doors of the 41000 car at left. The Climax Radial roofs are sparkling. From left to right:

N&W 41000-41995, BPa, from 40000-40999, BP, by sealing auxiliary door. Earliest stencil date 11-1934 seen elsewhere. Will be rebuilt by removing auxiliary door without renumbering or change in class, 1940.

N&W 120000-120799, BK, rebuilt from Murphy Type 2 Flexible Roof to Climax radial roof at least as early as 11-1934.

N&W 42000-42790, BLa, from 67000-67999, BL, 1935-1936, by removing auxiliary door and replacing original inside metal roof with Climax radial roof. N&W photo of #67910 dated 12/34 shows new roof but still with auxiliary door so roof and door alterations may not have been simultaneous in all cases or this may have been an early sample?

#67910:  http://www.nwhs.org/archivesdb/detail.php?ID=19339

Drawings of the Climax Radial roof: 
http://www.nwhs.org/archivesdb/detail.php?ID=50886

Eric Lombard
Homewood, IL

Matt Goodman
Columbus, Ohio

Sent from my mobile

On Dec 30, 2014, at 11:21 AM, NW Mailing List <nw-mailing-list at nwhs.org> wrote:

I can't help you with the date, but the sight of the grain doors across the opening of the box cars and stacked on the ground reminds me of one of the hardest day's work that I ever did.  It was the summer of 1954, and I was working two months of my summer vacation from college as a laborer on the N&W's weed spray train.  At one point we ran out of the chemical that we had been spraying so the powers that be put our crew to work in the N&W's Roadway Material Yard in Roanoke stacking those heavy grain doors in a box car to be sent somewhere.  In those days I was a 128-pound weakling, and lifting those grain doors wore me out.  I was glad when we received the chemical the next day and I was able to go back to my assigned job as a short-boom operator on the weed spray train.

Gordon Hamilton
  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: NW Mailing List 
  To: STMFC at yahoogroups.com ; NW Mailing List 
  Sent: Monday, December 29, 2014 2:12 PM
  Subject: N&W Boxcars in Grain Service in Columbus

  Folks,  

  I found this image in the Columbus Metropolitan Library’s digital collection.  It’s a nice image of outside braced boxcars at a Silo on the east side of Columbus.  The description from the Library follows; note that the exact year is unknown - any thoughts?

  Below the description are links to the image on my dropbox and to a google map of the location.

  Title: Siding at Gwinn Milling Co. [graphic].
  Publisher, Date: Columbus, OH : Citizen, [1940?].
  Description: 1 photoprint : b&w ; 18 x 23 cm.
  Summary: Railroad siding at the Gwinn Milling Co., located at 1915 E. Main St., Columbus, Ohio.
  Subjects: Gwinn Milling Co.
  Notes: Photo undated.
  Library Link (may need a membership)
  https://catalog.clcohio.org/polaris/search/title.aspx?ctx=1.1033.0.0.3&pos=96

  My Dropbox link:
  https://www.dropbox.com/s/w0gfd1bxizu62o4/645972.tif?dl=0

  Google Maps Location:
  https://www.google.com/maps/@39.9566237,-82.9488637,303m/data=!3m1!1e3

  This location is shown in a couple of the Barringer N&W photos after the grade separation (I suspect that the grain loading image was prior to that).

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