I saw these cars first-hand while living in Lynchburg, VA from 1981-87. The
boxcars were mostly PS-1s that had been rebuilt in the 70s with larger doors
and sidesill reinforcements, repainted and renumbered in difference series
(there were many), in typical SR fashion. Apparently there was a need for
single-trailer pig flats and the "typical" 89-footers wasted a lot of space
because trailers had grown to about 48 feet at that time, thus allowing only
1 trailer per flat. Southern shipped the obsolete 50-foot boxcars to
Virginia Iron & Metal in Roanoke for stripping . and I mean ALL THE WAY to
the frame. I've seen short strings of 4 cars that looked nothing more than
flat cars with rough edges being hauled thru Roanoke as they were staged to
be rebuilt into pig flats. I think the East End Car Shop did the actual
rebuilding.
When finished, many were forwarded empty to northern Virginia where they
made their first revenue trip southbound on Tr. 219, the hottest pig train
at that time (Tr. 173 also carried pigs but was mainly mixed; 219 was ALL
intermodal). It was a common sight in the mid-80s to see freshly painted SR
pig flats carrying their first load thru Monroe, VA, where I spent a LOT of
time with the camera during my time in VA.
Jim King
Smoky Mountain Model Works, Inc.
www.smokymountainmodelworks.com
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
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