SP Boxcar - What did these haul

86’ auto parts boxcar.

Usually frames. At least that was what was in the ones (not SP) heading to the Wilmington, DE Chrysler(?) plant. Now flattened, btw. They came south on the Port Road and turned north on the corridor to Wilmington. Interesting to watch at Perryville.

Saw an early, four-door version of the Southern Pacific one last night in 1967's "In the Heat of the Night." Here's a YouTube video with trains from the movie - the SP box car is at about 1:05.

Sheet metal car part for Chevys.   These were mostly pool cars.   Pools could be set up by the line that a plant was on if specialized equipment was required.   Let’s say in this case 20% of the traffic was going to go over the SP. SP could be ask to supply 20% of the cars. The railroad that the industrial was on would manage all the cars in the pool. It is possible that the SP cars would rarely or never get back to SP track.   The pool operator would manage maintenance and maintenance costs would be allocated also based on either actual or allocated revenue. With fewer and longer railroads today, there may not be many pools anymore.

CSX still runs a bunch of these 86 footers through Ohio on a regular basis. Auto parts was what I understand they are for.

Thank you everyone. In a mixed freight, those 86' cars stand out and their size is quite impressive from a trackside view.

Paul

Those huge auto parts cars were used for transporting loads to the assembly plants.  They were designed for rapid unloading.  Repair parts for auto dealers were handled in more conventional cars, packed tightly all the way to the roof.

In 1965, during the summer after my first year of college, I worked as a picker and packer, at the Ford Motor Company Parts Depot in Los Angeles, which distributed genuine Ford parts to dealers in the west.  

We received parts in 40 or 50 foot boxcars, many of them being round roof DT&I cars.  As I was 5"11" and weighed about 140 lbs. they sent me out to the dock to help unload a boxcar of fenders, hoods, roofs, and doors.  The unloaders, who had -- well -- "mature" physiques, had spotted me and determined that I could be the answer to a difficult part of their jobs: namely, getting sheet metal parts off of the top of the load.  I should mention that the first task was for me to climb the ladder onto the dock awning and slide a fiberglas sheet over to cover the gap between the car and the awning, for shade, while the unloaders were putting the ramp from the dock to the car floor.  OSHA, had it existed then, would have had a fit over this dangerous procedure.  Even as thin as I was, there was little space to work in, between the steel roof and the top of the load, and, brothers, it was hot!  The sheet metal parts were individually wrapped in padded Kraft paper.  I could reach and slide them, one at a time, to the door, and push it out to the unloaders, waiting (in the shade and the breeze, of course) on the dock.  It got a little cooler as the load became lower, but I still had to lie flat  and distribute my weight (such as it was), to move the parts, in order to avoid warping or bending them, until the load got down to being waist high.

So, whenever a car of sheet metal was spotted at the dock, I was called away from the parts bins, to go out and squeeze myself up onto the top of the load.  Those older guys did not want to climb onto the roof, and they had a hard time fitting inside the car.  I'll say this for the unloaders, though, they used me, but they took care of me.  Whenever I got down from the car, soaked in sweat, there was always an ice cold Coca Cola waiting for me.

Tom, that story painted quite the visual. I'm sure that Coke tasted mighty fine when you were done.

Paul

This discussion of 86" auto parts boxcars stirred up another memory.

On the Los Angeles Division of the Santa Fe we served the Ford/Lincoln/Mercury assembly plant at Pico Rivera, just east of Los Angeles, and Southern Pacific served the GM plant at Van Nuys, north of the city.  The auto plant business was a very high priority, as the auto manufacturers demanded "just-in-time" delivery of parts for the vehicles to be manufactured that day.  That was also why the cars were designed for rapid unloading and delivery right to the appropriate assembly station.  Late delivery, just once, would disrupt the assembly line for more than one day, and, if late enough, would cause the plant to shut down, taking several days to recover after re-opening.  So the financial penalties to the railroad for late delivery were extremely severe.  GM and Ford absorbed none of the extra cost from late deliveries.  

We had a yard at Pico Rivera with round-the-clock road-switcher crews which used Alco-GE S2 and S4 switch engines to switch Ford, and also the many light industries in the area.  We also had a small Car Department crew there in case we derailed a Ford Car in switching.  SP had a similar operation in Van Nuys, and did some hauling from yard to yard there, using Baldwin AS6-16's, but those brutes did not switch the assembly plant.  They picked up the finished vehicles in bi-level and try-level cars, as well as the empty auto parts cars, and took them to another yard for pick up.  The empty auto parts cars were pretty hot on their return trip, empty, as well.

Santa Fe and SP forwarded the auto parts 2,200 miles westward, from fast connections in Chicago or St. Louis (Wabash -- by then N&W -- was one of them) on red ball freight trains.  Those cars were carefully watched, all the way across our railroad, and, if the train fell behind schedule, Santa Fe went into action, pulling the auto parts out of the train and creating a Ford Special.  SP did the same thing on their railroad, for GM Van Nuys.  Western Pacific served a big Ford plant at Milpitas, California, near San Jose, but I'm not sure how those cars were routed to the WP.

This could happen as far back as, say, Belen, over 1,000 rail miles east of Los Angeles, or Needles, or Barstow.  Ford Specials were always assigned at least 2 diesel units, taking no chance that a single unit would fail en route.  The trains always had a train order allowing them to operate at passenger train speed, on curves and intervening straight track, not exceeding 70 MPH (or 79 MPH when the locomotives were geared for 90 MPH).  Santa Fe had 20 F45's, 9 FP45's, and 30 SD45 and SD45-2's geared for 90 MPH, plus there was always the chance that a couple of red nosed passenger F3 or F7 units could  be found at Barstow.

Ford Specials never used sidings, but the trains ahead of them sure did.  The Specials were not supposed to see anything but green block signals.

So, that's the kind of handling that those 86-foot auto parts boxcars received from the railroads serving assembly plants.  The business was lucrative if we delivered on time, or onerous on the few occasions that we failed.