a question about drawings in our archives

[NW Mailing List]

Brent

Back to your original question about a climax roof. A simple search with the word “Climax” on the archives comes up with 17 documents that include that term. 

http://www.nwhs.org/archivesdb/listdocs/select.php?index=search&Searchword=climax <http://www.nwhs.org/archivesdb/listdocs/select.php?index=search&Searchword=climax>

There are a variety of classes of cars showing the application of such roof including BK boxcars.

There is also a drawing or multiple drawings that has a chart or charts of specifications of features various class of cars.

As far as drawings go, from what I’ve observed, the speculative stuff tends to be more often things like track relocations, wire crossings, sidings, structures, and they tend to be marked as “proposed.” In most cases of wire crossings, they did tend to be done, with no change in notation on the original drawing, you have to go back to the N&W Agreement Books and study to see if there are prints with notes of changes.

With structures, there are a number of drawings beginning, I believe in early-mid 1940 proposals were made for remodeling the Roanoke passenger station with various designs and floor plans. World War II stopped the modernization process, but before the war was over, the project came back around. Apparently none of the designs met managements approval coupled with the lack of materials availability immediately after the war, caused postponement until the Raymond Lowey firm was contracted for the modernization plan, completed April 1, 1949. Most of the drawings listed as “proposed."

The railroad, in most cases, did not raise speculation of “how would this look?” More often it was applied to a group of cars, consider it as a test, to see how it worked, how much maintenance it took, etc. It was more like we want to find out if this is something we want to convert to, or specify for a future order.

If someone has better info, please chime in!

Ken Miller

> On Aug 3, 2018, at 5:25 PM, NW Mailing List <nw-mailing-list at nwhs.org> wrote:
> 
> I have on occasion prowled about the on-line collection of drawings in our archives and it is amazingly extensive.  It is also interesting to me the amount of detail that went into these drawings and they seem to encompass even the most subtle nuances of changes over time.  I have also found a few drawings of interesting things for which I have never seen prototype photos, so this brings about my question.  Given the time and detail involved in creating these documents, how often would N&W engage in such exercises, if they never actually got translated to something that was used?  Could there really be that many drawings done that were only "what-if" speculations?  Like "what-if" we wanted to add a Viking roof to a specific class of boxcar, then it would look like this, and "what-if" we wanted to add a Climax roof to that same class of boxcar, then it would look like this, etc. etc.   Can it be reasonably assumed(absent obvious photographic proof) that if there is a set of drawings showing a particular appliance installed on a particular car type that it was actually at least done once in real life?  Or was it common practice for these drawings to be created based upon pure speculation or the various component offerings of the different manufacturers  (ends, roofs, doors, lock systems, etc.) ?
> 
> Brent
> Dr. J. Brent Greer
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