MOW equipment

Love that TJ!  MOW/company service cars are some of my very favorites to model because of considerations like you showed.  Great projects with a lot of neat weathering, worn lettering, etc.

Since my prototype didn't exist until 1984, it even had to buy its beat up MOW fleet, so that included all sorts of examples from far-flung original owners.  They had MOW flats in my era that had Rock Island, CGW, and BN lettering, as well as MOW boxcars from the old "Ma & Pa" (Maryland & Pennsylvania) and CGW, and ballast hoppers/side-dumps from ATSF, DM&IR, and others.

Stack

Are you SURE that’s attached to the car and not a vent for something in the foreground?

if it’s attached to the car, it’s attached to the car the side ladder and makes the side clearance too wide to move....

I can't see the stack as part

I can't see the stack as part of the car. It makes no sense at all! The car would be to wide, and where would it connect   to the bottom or side of the car?The stack is next to the ladder and I don't see how it's connected to the ladder, no brackets around the stack. The stack is thin metal if it's like most I've seen. Look, I could be wrong, but I'd have to see another photo as proof.

Regards,

Yes Gents, it was absolutely

Yes Gents, it was absolutely attached to the side of the car and entered near the floor.  Unfortunately, this is the only photo I was able to get of it.  Perhaps a wood burning stove?  After all, it gets pretty cold in northeastern Indiana in the winter months.

What stove?

but a chimney vents from the top... not the floor! 

Perhaps a portable workshop with a fan-powered fresh air vent?  Then a door would do better.  Wow, a mystery!

http://rrpicturearchives.net/

http://rrpicturearchives.net/rsPicture.aspx?id=189557

no stack visible on these pics but who knows?  

Actually

if you look closely, the stack is still heading down as it goes past the floor. It would have been cut in above the horizontal lines on the side of the body to make it venting something at floor level.

The df by the reporting marks...

is the necessary clue.  It is obviously equipped with a downdraft furnace.

Nick

Toilet.

That's a privy stack... for a toilet. So the whole car doesn't smell like Chester's chili and beer...

Except

For all the other N&W boxcars with "DF"

http://i.ebayimg.com/images/i/142416362747-0-1/s-l1000.jpg

MOW car

TJR

I grew up in the Fort Wayne area and rail-fanned the East Wayne yards for many many years before moving out west. It's hard to tell, but at one time there was a scale house in the yard that had a stack similar to the one in the photo. I had always assumed that it was the exhaust stack for the scale house, or maybe even a heater to unthaw the scales if needed.  Anyway it's good to see a photo from my old stomping grounds.

Thanks Don.  If I had

Thanks Don.  If I had unlimited funds, space, and time, my ultimate layout would be a complete Ft. Wayne system from the transitional era between steam and diesel.  My Grandpa worked for the Pennsy Engine Shop, but he had passed before my parents were married, so I never knew him.