I hope someone can answer a few questions for me. 1- when were ACF 2-bay hoppers first built? 2- what kind of rolling stock was available in the mid 50's to haul cement or other heavy bulk products? 3- Up until what year(approx) did icehouses and refrigerator cars with the ice hatches in the top last 4- what is the best resource for finding this sort of info? Is there a web post that anyone knows of? Thanks
I highly recomend the Steam Era Freight cars Site. Ice houses lasted into the early-mid sixties when modern reefer designs came into existance. Many were already gone by this time anyways. The reefers that required icing platforms and all lasted into the mid 70's. When newer insulated and mechanical reefers became popular in the late 50's many older ice reefers were put into boxcar service, all you had to do were close the hatches and remove the ice and you had a boxcar. ACF 2 Bay hoppers came into existance right around the end of WWII and were the most common type of dry material transfer that couldn't be loaded into open hoppers. Many railroads rebuild old open-top hoppers and added roofs and hatches and pressed them into covered hopper service.
Also, as the old ice reefers reached or surpassed the 40 year rule, they were often used as tool cars and other uses for Maintainence of way service. They often lasted into the late 80's. I know there used to be a B&O Wagon Top and two ice reefers here as MoW storage until about 1993 when the old railroad station burned and took the two reefers with it. I wish I knew the numbers but i was only 8 at the time.
