Tag Archives: Work Car Wednesday

Work Car Wednesday #4

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AC 10668 is another bunk car painted an unusual bright yellow colour. (This and hoistman’s bunk 10607 are the only cars I’ve seen photos of repainted all in yellow.)

10668 is a service bunk car rebuilt from one of the Algoma Central’s 9501-9520 series wooden cabooses. Several such conversions were performed in the late 1970s after new steel cabooses were purchased in 1976 to replace several of the older wooden cabooses, although a few older wooden cabooses remained on stand by service for when extra cabooses were required.

At Steelton Yard, March 1981. Photographer unknown, slide in my collection.

Work Car Wednesday #3

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ac10607

AC 10607 is one of the railway’s older bunk cars built from old 36′ wooden boxcars. Once the railway had several very similar or identical bunk cars all around the 1060x number range, but 10607 definitely appears to have been the last survivor from this era.

This car was assigned to the diesel hoist operator as a sleeping car. Photographed in the early 1990s at Steelton yard by Blair Smith, it was freshly repainted into this eye-catching bright yellow in 1982.

Work Car Wednesday #2

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These two interesting gondola cars are support cars that would be paired with one of the railway’s light diesel hoist to carry buckets and other attachments and supplies for the crane.

The above car, AC 10588, is a boom car; it carries crane supplies and a clamshell bucket, and would be coupled directly to the crane while in transit, with the crane’s boom positioned and tied down over this car. Notice how the corners of the car have been cut off at an angle to allow the crane boom to swing over the car. AC 10587 has been identified as an almost identical car.

The second car below, AC 10591, is labelled simply as a bucket car. Loaded with no less than four different clamshell buckets, it also features a storage area at the close end for related supplies. The yellow car coupled at the far end is bunk car AC 10607, which was assigned as a crane operator’s sleeping car.

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Both of these two cars are also rebuilt from older Algoma Central gondolas from the series AC 4601-4803 or 4804-4850, which were (re)built by the AC’s car shops in 1946-1948 from older 40′ flatcar underframes.

Both photos courtesy of Blair Smith.