Monday, September 4, 2023

Pennsy Tool Car

 Bob Albertson sends us a couple of pictures of the Pennsy tool car that the Freight Dept. guys are now working on.

First is a picture of the car at IRM, before work started, dated 2015:

Photo by Tim Fennell

And then a couple that Bob took recently of the work in progress:




And finally, a similar car at NORM, which is what we want it to look like:


We have the tools, we have the talent.  This car is bigger than the bobber, but should turn out just as well.  Watch this space for updates!

5 comments:

Raphael said...

Will the Pennsy tool car, once complete, accompany one of the crane cars?

Jason Ducek said...

Love the Ghostbusters quote haha. I always thought Randy had to be a cool guy….this just proves it.

sd45elect2000 said...

It’s odd with the left hand opening door..

Randy

Frank Hicks said...

This tool car was rebuilt from an X23, which was a very early design of single-sheathed boxcar. The left-opening doors were favored by the Pennsy and were also used on their XL class, which preceded the X23. They didn't switch to right-opening doors until WWI or so, I think.

One of the unusual things about the X23 was that the siding ran vertically, rather than horizontally as with almost all other single-sheathed designs, thus those short horizontal braces to help support the boards. This car is a contemporary of another early single-sheathed wood car in our collection, Soo Line 33096, built the same year to a design much closer to later single-sheathed cars.

Ted Miles said...

I am glad to see another Pennsylvania car getting attention. The cabin car sure looks good! Growing up on Long Island, the LIRR was a subsidiary of the the PRR until the State of New york bought the line. Anyway, going the other way the Standard Railroad of the World went out to Chicago with some of their many passenger trains. and also freight trains. They were Electric power to Harrisburg and steam after that!

TM, PRR fan