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Re: (erielack) Foreign road express cars



Frank,

Not all automobile box cars had end doors, many just had double doors. 
The automobiles where man handled into position. Many of the box cars 
were equipped with auto racks which loaded two cars angled and raised 
against the ceiling and two more cars were tucked in under them. Early 
enclosed auto racks if you will.

It was common for passenger horse cars to carry horses for sulky racing 
and the sulkies would be loaded in the horse cars along with the horses. 
If you want to learn more about 1870-1880's possibilities, I suggest 
picking up or borrowing a copy of John White's two volume set on 
passenger cars. If you model that era, I would definitely recommend you 
pick up his freight car book too. It is dedicated to wood freight car 
development, is very large and ponderous, but is actually quite 
readable. A must for 19th century modelers.

Carriages were indeed shipped by rail, but in regular boxcars from the 
manufacturer to the "sales floor" or consumer, much as automobiles would 
be in a later generation. Whether private carriages were shipped in 
passenger trains well...I'll bet if you research deep enough you will 
find a prototype for it. Then too we think containerized freight was a 
mid to late 20th century innovation. They were doing it back in the late 
1840's and 1850's.

Somewhere I seem to recall reading that Franklin Roosevelt's limo often 
traveled in the passenger train with him. I believe it might have been a 
Pennsy passenger train horse car converted to accommodate it. My memory 
has failed before so take it for what it is worth.

Regards,

Will Shultz

frank mellott wrote:
> 1.  Automobile box cars had end doors...Still wouldn't have been used 
> for this though... They were the equivilant of today's bi & tri levels....
> 
> 2.  I'd never heard of private autos travelling in  express cars.. Makes 
> sense though.  Any idea if the auto tended to travel with the owner, OR 
> as the owner went south for the winter did he arrange to get the auto 
> moved and it left earlier so it could meet him there?
> 
> 3.  Did carriages get moved also?  Any chance that back in the 1870-1880 
> period that cars hauling carriages to the various Bedford area resorts 
> for the season would have travelled over the H&BTM or Bedford Division? 
> 
> Frank
> 
> 
> 

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