Freight Car Friday #25 – AC 2036

ACR from Blair 012

This old wooden boxcar was in pretty rough shape when found in behind the Steelton shops by Blair Smith on August 1, 1996. The paint and the car’s number are all but completely obliterated, but the number is probably AC 10036 or possibly AC 2036. The 10xxx series number range was used by the ACR for non-revenue and work equipment, although some tool and bunk cars were renumbered with 20xx numbers in the late 1980s. I’m not sure of the reason for the 20xx grouping, but it seemed to include some ancient wood boxcars used as tool and storage cars for the ACR’s auxiliary (wreck crane) train.

This car would have been an original AC 3101-3200 series car acquired new in 1928.

Freight Car Friday #24 – AC 238464

ACR from Blair 042

AC 238464 at Steelton yard on July 9, 2001. You can see a piece of the original ‘CENTRAL’ lettering to the right of the number, so this particular car is from the 2401-2425 series built new for the ACR in 1975. This was renumbered and rebuilt with side stakes in 1998.

Photo courtesy Blair Smith.

Freight Car Friday #23 – AC 238446

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AC 238446 at Cochrane, Ontario on July 16, 2014, one of 70 cars in series 238400-238469 rebuilt in 1998 from cars in the AC 2401-2501 number range in random order.

The orange paint on this car marks it as having been renumbered from a car in the specific series AC 2476-2494, originally built in 1975 for North American Car Co. (then one of the major car leasing/management companies – now part of GE Rail Services) and acquired by the ACR in 1994, possibly via the CN/CNIS 603400-603424 series.