Sept 1968

A memo was sent out on September 19, 1968 from Southern HQ instructing the shops to start applying the GIVES A GREEN LIGHT TO INNOVATIONS slogan to the boxcars being rebuilt at Berwick and Hamburg promptly.  Presumably all new boxcar purchases after that date received it as well.

Helps to have friends who are more, um, particular about things Southern than even I am.....

Scott Chatfield

Formerly of the Southern Railway

Sept 1968

Doesn't get more specific than that.

Of course this means it would have been still extremely rare by 1970 on individual cars that hadn't been part of a major fleet rebuilding program.

May not be helpful to you but

May not be helpful to you but I can tell you that I well recall seeing both slogans in my teenage years from 1975-80 and a little beyond. I don't remember the specific type of boxcars and "GREEN LIGHT TO INNOVATIONS" was pretty prevalent.

Superb!

Scott many thanks for it! Indeed it doesn't get more specific than this!

Now as Chris mentioned about rarity, this cut-off date is cutting it a bit too close for me with low odds of seeing one in 1969. As i said, so far i have seen only 1 for mid 1970 (shopped mid-1970, but it looks a lot like it has an 8' door and not a 9' one), and a double door P-S car in mid/late 1969 (shopped early 1969). So at least the latter is a good-to-go option. Now i need to find a before-1970 picture of a 1957-1960 built 50' P-S with a single 9' (or 8') door .

Michael, it sure helps to put things under a specific (and useful) perspective. Thank you for the contribution!

Rebuilt PS-1s

The two rebuild programs refered to in the memo were modernizing 40-foot boxcars, both PS-1s and earlier AAR designs.  The memo was also sent to Hayne Shops where 50-foot boxes were getting their running boards removed and ladders and brake wheels lowered.  So if you paint any Southern smoothside PS-1 in Green Light you should also modernize it as well.

Most of the smoothside double-door PS-1s were in autoparts service as far as I know, at least when new, but a few did not have special loading equipment so they could've hauled lumber.  I think they were also built later than most of the smoothside 9-foot door cars, so they would be more likely to still wear their factory paint in 1969.

The Southern owned so many boxcars that they literally were seen everywhere.  You can't go wrong modeling a few no matter where your layout is set.

Scott Chatfield

Southern boxcar pics

There's quite a few on rr-fallenflags.org of course.  And have you checked out southern.railfan.net?

What was the number of that single-door car you saw?

There are a couple photos of factory paint single-doors in Jim Kincaid's Southern Railway color guide (Morning Sun).  1955-built 36084 was shot in July 1964 after it had been upgraded to 100 tons capacity and received new roller bearing trucks.  It was not repainted though.  The other is the 1957-built 308055 shot in July 1971 and badly in need of a paint job.  Both had 9-foot doors.

Scott Chatfield

Thanks Scott...details

Yes i did notice what you mentioned about modernization. Makes sense for post 1968 shopped cars to lose the roofwalks and ladders.

For double door ones i got 34884 in mind. Shopped 3/69 if i can read it correctly, with the "green light" logo. Does appear to have some damage-free loading system. I don't know if this renders it not-likely for lumber.

For single door, i saw a few on the southern site you mentioned (thanks for the heads up!). Most had the old-style logo, but unfortunately they got the superior door (i got a YT 9' one).

The car i was having in mind for single 9' YT dooes is 37336 which had the same 9' door as the Kadee car i got in hand. I don't know though if cars in close roadnumbers did appear in the older style paint scheme in 1969/70. I suppose all of the 36000 and 37000 series had 9' doors either YT or Superior? I saw a 36... series with 9' Superior 6 panel door with the old style logo. I assume that 37336 was at some point having the identical logo right?

I hope i am making sense with this, and i am so glad to be able to get this info from a former SOU railroader! Much appreciated, thanks.

Yannis

SOU 34884

34884 is indeed a double-door 50-ton  PS-1built in 1957.  Series 34800-34902.  Series 262900-262999 and 308000-308021 were built at the same time.  Youngstown doors on all three groups.  Miner friction draft gear and brakewheel/gearbox.  Running board not spec'd on my circa-1970 general arrangement drawing.  Barber trucks with Timken bearings in the first and third series, Hyatts in the second.

All cars have 19-belt DF loaders except 262960-262994, which had fully adjustable DF loaders.  You can't see the difference from the outside.

I don't think anything about these cars precludes them from being used for lumber.

Scott Chatfield

SOU 37336

37336 was a 50-ton single-door (9') cushioned underframe PS-1 built in 1958.  Part of four groups of such cars delivered that year.  The series were 37250-37349 (Carolina & Northwestern sublettering), 37350-37369, 263660-263709, and 308322-308341.

All had Youngstown "Camel" doors (when new at least), Miner handbrakes, and the running board is not spec'd.  Barber trucks with Timken bearings in the first group and Hyatt bearings in the other three.

"RF-333" draft gear is spec'd with no other details of the cushioned underframe.  I'm not familiar with that draft gear so that's something to look for in the archives.  The length over strikers is the same as a normal friction draft gear car, so it's not a sliding centersill design.

Scott Chatfield

Many thanks Scott!

This is exactly what i was looking for and it will be put as soon as possible into action on the benchwork.

I ll aim for the modernized 34884 double door with the "green light" slogan, and for a 37350-37369 series with the previous "Southern serves the south" slogan (9' YT "wide" doors). This is based on the assumption the latter (37350-37369) has more probabilities being seen in the older style paint scheme in 1969/70 rather than the "green light" one lacking a dated photo for confirmation (as i have seen in the 34884).

Thank you again Scott for the solid/detailed info. It is much appreciated once more.

Yannis

Aluminum door PS-1s

Since you mentioned them on the Frisco thread, I'll add my thoughts here:  Don't bother.

Why?  Three reasons.  First, they were oddballs.  Two small groups, 34903-34917 and 262865-262899, built in 1960.  The aluminum doors were rather short lived, since they were no match for a fork lift tine, a warehouse man's favorite tool for opening boxcar doors.  Lastly, they had a bunch of special DF loading equipment, which screams "pool car" to me.

So I strongly doubt they were used to haul lumber and I doubt any of the aluminum doors were still on them in 1969.

Unfortunately, these are the only Southern 50-foot PS-1s Kadee has done to date, to the tune of six or seven numbers.  Why?  Because they, alone among Southern PS-1s, had Blaw-Knox running boards, which if memory serves look like Apex boards at first glance.  All other Southern PS-1s had Morton boards AFAIK, the ones with round holes stamped into them.  And Kadee did not make a Morton board until recently, so they have not done any schemes that required a Morton.

The running boards are another reason I suspect these were built for a pool.  Pullman might have built one large batch of cars and then painted them after the pool members (several railroads) divvied them up.

I'll see if I can find the purchase paperwork, called a New Car Program on the Southern, on my next visit to the archives.

Scott Chatfield

Good to know Scott!

That saved me some trouble with the aluminum doors.  I will stick to the other two choices that i mentioned in the previous posts. Possibly in combination with the 3rd car being in the older-style SR paint-scheme (40' car). The cars have been updated by the late 60s with strengthened sills based on a few photos, so if i am in the mood for mods i might go for it...

I think that i have not seen any 10' door PS-1 50' cars, they seem to have ordered only 9' ones?

If i am not mistaken they make 40' Morton walkways and not 50' yet. For the time being i ll use an Apex as a stand-in for the single door PS car in the older-style scheme and replace with i get a Morton (Plano does offer a 50' Morton if i remember correctly). Luckily the double door does not need the roofwalk (modernized).

A bit OT as i organize the project,... looking at colors, it seems that Vallejo does make the SOU boxcar brown !!! (#71.125).

Doors and color

I don't recall any Southern 50-foot smooth side PS-1s with 10-foot doors.  All 9-footers, or doubles.  I think by the time the 10-foot door became the defacto standard the Southern was well into its infactuation with any wild exterior post boxcar Pullman could come up with.

What they did have was almost every variation of 9-foot door you could buy from Pullman, Superior, or Youngstown.  Fortunately Kadee makes them and sells them separately.

As for color, I still have a bottle of Floquil "Southern Freight Car Brown".  I rarely use Floquil anymore.  Haven't for 25 years.  I'll have to take a look at the Vallejo color.

Scott Chatfield

....

Good to know about the doors!

They did have some nice RBL cars by the way... (I once upon a time thought of using SOU RBL's in a pool of RBL's to serve my brewery in South Pasadena, other RBL's being mostly ATSF, but for some reason i though of SOU as being too far away for such a pool...)

RBLs and pools

Only Southern painted RBLs I can recall in 1969 would be the insulated PS-1s in the 500-series.  Two groups, 500-569 with offset door and 570-649 with a centered door.  Mask Island makes a cast resin door and the decals for this conversion.

Southern also had a small group of PS-1s made into mechanical refrigerators.

Otherwise, in 1969 the Southern used yellow FGE insulated boxcars for most of its beer hauling.  Moloco recently did some very nice examples.  The Walthers FGE insulated box is a slightly later (1971+) prototype.

Breweries tend to be regional, especially in earlier times, so yes it probably doesn't make sense to have Southern RBLs in a pool serving a southern California brewery.  Santa Fe, SP, UP, maybe WP, even GN or NP (in 1969) if the brewery ships to Portland or Seattle.

And when cars are assigned to a pool it doesn't matter which car goes where.  So SP cars can get loaded to Santa Fe or UP destinations.  In theory the per diem balances out, because each road contributes cars in proportion to the revenue they get from shipments by that shipper.  Most model railroaders seem to have a hard time accepting this reality.

The nice thing about pools is it's a prototypical reason to see the same cars over and over on your layout.

Scott Chatfield

Pools...

Thanks Scott for confirming my pool reservations. I once upon a time had in mind those 570 series cars (based off a Kadee PS-1, with a 10' plug door). Out of the roads you mentioned in fact it is going to be ATSF/WP/UP with possibly one odd DRGW car (i want that three color yellow-silver-black scheme and it's either an RBL or a dd car).

Green Dot Southern Boxcars

Hello.  A search of the  green dot on Southern boxcars on Google led me here, which is great because I am a model railroader, too.  But what got me to wondering about it was that I saw one the other day while taking a video of a train for my youtube channel, Meigs County Railroad.  I had thought I remembered seeing them in the 60s, but I didn't realize it was so late in the 60s.  At any rate, I think it's really something that they're still in use today.  I told all my other youtube friends that if they see one, it's rare and they should zoom in on it.

Looking forwards to learning a lot here.

Greg

(Ironically, Meigs County is the only county in TN without railroads or tracks or anything rail related).

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCLw9L35qVJ9wKdMa6bWYqiQ/videos