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(erielack) DL&W USRA DS boxcar with Phoebe lettering



In a message dated 8/20/01 10:26:21 PM Eastern Daylight Time, 
gelwood_@_dnaco.net writes:

> "Boston & Maine in the Four Seasons, Volume 2", an excellent video from
>  Herron based on 16 mm. films shot by Stanley Y. Whitney between 1946 and
>  1951.  One sequence shows a 17-car "high car" freight at Wakefield,
>  Mass.  John Nehrich has noted at the RPI club's website that some
>  Lackawanna experts have maintained that the line never applied the
>  Phoebe Snow slogan to its USRA boxcars as Ertl and Accurail have on
>  their HO models.  Well, after about five viewings of that footage I'm
>  convinced that the third car in the train certainly looks like a USRA
>  double-sheathed boxcar

Hi Steve,

    Would like to see that sequence, for sure.   I'm one of those who beleive 
that the likelihood of the Phoebe billboard on a USRA DS car is slim.  I 
would never say never, but there were few enough of them on the roster by the 
time the billboard got into full swing that it's very unlikely.  I'm always 
open to documentation.  

    Remember, though, that the DL&W got two groups of mid-1920s-built wooden 
DS cars with very similar ends to the USRA car, and almost all of those that 
were in service after WWII got the billboard.  In the 1930s DL&W's Keyser 
Valley shops was turning the USRA DS cars into steel auto boxcars, it sold 
some, and basically only a dozen or two were in service, some of which were 
converted to other things, such as piggyback flats in 1955. 

    The spotting features of the USRA cars that would plainly show on a 
typical runby are the six door rollers under the door, no rollers above the 
door, and square corners.  The later DS cars had rollers above and below the 
doors and W corners. The USRA cars were in the 44000-series, the similar 
later cars were in the 45000- and 46000-series.

    Hope this helps, and I'd be very interested to learn if this is indeed a 
USRA DS car upon another viewing.  This is an important aspect of the history 
of the USRA DS cars and of the Phoebe billboard.

                    Thanks                      ....Mike

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