Elvas Tower: 5 Car set SP B-50-15 Boxcars Overnight Scheme - Elvas Tower

Southern Pacific Class B-50-15.
Five 50-TON,40-FOOT SINGLE-SHEATHED STEEL BOXCARS
Mesh and Textures ©2008, 2010 by Tim Muir
Car #20263 repaint/number by Anthony D.Cook

In 1925, the American Railway Association proposed a standard 40-foot, 50-ton single-sheathed ("outside-braced") box car. The Southern Pacific purchased parts and materials to build two samples, SP Class "A.R.A.4D", to study the design in operation. Evidently, the SP was not satisfied and did not repeat the design further than the two prototypes. The railroad did, however, feel that there was merit in much of the ARA design and used some features of the cars for their next class of box car, B-50-15, the subject of this newest model from Railroad Earth. The most noteworthy difference from the ARA cars is the inside height was increased from 8'-7" to 9'-1". There were also changes to the underframe. There were over 4900 cars of the B-50-15 and -16 classes, 3900 being of the former class. B-50-15 was the last class of box cars to have the corrugated steel ends, while the B-50-16's featured the Dreadnaught design of ribbed steel ends.

In the early 1930's the SP began it's Less Than Carload (LCL) program and in 1935 began conversions of B-50-15 and -16 cars with passenger equipment including signal and steam lines, wrought steel wheels, and Type E couplers to operate safely at high speeds. The 95 cars retained their wood sheathing, painted dark olive with gold lettering and numbered 9000-9094. In 1936, 50 more cars were converted, 9095-9144, but this time the cars were sheathed in steel by welding sheets to the inside of the steel bracing members. These cars had a new paint scheme, all black with PFE Orange striping along the eave edging, bottom and door framing, and lettering. In 1937, 195 more cars were so converted, numbered 9145-9339.In late 1939 to early 1940, 32 of the cars were given AB air brakes and vertical wheel powered hand brakes, numbered 9340-9371. A final conversion resulted in 100 more cars numbered 8950-8999 and 9372-9421, the program closing during WW2.

After the war, SP reinstated their "Overnight" freight service, and the converted B-50-15's and -16's were given the same color scheme of black but with white lettering and a new red and yellow "Overnight" symbol. After 1950, this traffic declined, so the cars were converted back to general freight service and painted mineral red. The program of rebuilding the class still went ahead, receiving steel sheathing and AB brakes, 775 cars between 1950 and 1956. Many survived to be renumbered in 1956. By 1970 there were 227 B-50-15's and 25 -16's still on the roster.

The cars in this archive represent five examples of the B-50-15 with the "Overnight" color scheme. All cars are steel sheathed and have U-channel trucks, two are flipped and two have ladders to the left of the doors. These are freight-animated add-on parts and can easily be removed or added to the other cars if you so desire, by editing the FreightAnim line as seen in the .wag files of #'s 20197 and 20303.

Unzip to a temporary folder. Move contents to ...\Trains\Trainset folder, or Add the contents to the Trainset folder: SP_B-50-15_Boxcars, if you already have it, and let it overwrite to save space, if needed. Build a Consist in a Consist Editor.

LEGAL:
As author of this new design, I advise that it is copyrighted, but royalty free. You may use it and edit it as you wish, but you may not distribute it for money, or include it in a paid distribution without permission from Tim Muir, who can be reached via personal message at Elvas Tower http://www.elvastower.com/forums/. You must include my name in your credits, as well as my copyright notices, and this entire Readme.txt, if you repaint it, use or derive files from it, or otherwise use or distribute these files.
Because this program is royalty free, it is provided WHERE IS, AS IS, WITH ALL FAULTS, and WITHOUT WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE or any other warranties. There is no liability by the authors in your use of this program, instead all liability is assumed by the user.


Background info and reference photos from Anthony Thompson's book, Southern Pacific Freight Cars Vol.4, Box Cars, from Signature Press.

Dave Nelson, some wag file work.

Tony Cook gave me the inspiration for the Overnighters.

Thank You

Tim Muir
March, 2008, April 5, 2010
Railroad Earth

Original File Name = SP_B-50-15_Boxcars_Overnight.zip