Page 35 - 38. MRH13-04-Apr2013
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But many modelers seem to have a blind spot about the
Milwaukee. I have chosen two models as signature cars of the
Milwaukee, which are the two cars already mentioned. One
is a USRA single-sheathed boxcar, and the other is one of the
famous rib-side design boxcars.
Many railroads owned some USRA boxcars, but the Milwaukee
was the second-largest owner, trailing only the Pennsylvania,
so the Milwaukee cars were certainly significant. Moreover,
unlike most other owners, the Milwaukee left their USRA cars
with wood sheathing into the transition era. Information on
the entire spectrum of USRA freight cars is clearly summarized
and explained in an article by James E. Lane in the Railway
& Locomotive Historical Society journal,
Railroad History
(No. 128, Spring 1973, pages 5–33). Much additional pho-
tography of the boxcars is available in Pat Wider’s article for
Railway Prototype Cyclopedia
(Vol. 17, 2008, pages 1–51). The
Milwaukee’s 4000 USRA cars were numbered from 700000 to
703999, constructed by three different builders in 1919. My
model is from a Tichy styrene kit (1).
Getting Real Column - 3
1: This example of a Milwaukee Road USRA boxcar,
one of 4000 such cars purchased by the Milwaukee, is
a Tichy styrene product.
1
For the justly-famous Milwaukee rib-side boxcars, there
is a comprehensive and profusely illustrated article by Pat
Wider in
Railway Prototype Cyclopedia
(Vol. 13, 2006, pages
1–75). These cars were built over a span from 1937 to 1950.
Ultimately, the Milwaukee would build over 12,000 box and
automobile cars with this distinctive rib-side design. My model,
a Rib Side Cars version of the most common 40-foot cars, is
MILW 23145, is from a group of 1000 cars built at Milwaukee
shops in 1945, numbered 22188–23187 (2).
Another pair of boxcars I’ve chosen is from the Baltimore &
Ohio. The B&O owned the sixth largest non-hopper freight
car fleet in 1950, right behind the Milwaukee Road, as shown
in that December 2011 column. The B&O built a series of box
cars called “wagon top” cars, a unique design to the B&O, in
2: The Milwaukee Road owned quite a few 40-foot and
50-foot versions of their distinctive rib-side boxcars, of
which this model represents just one example. It is a
product of Rib Side Cars, in a ready-to-run styrene form.
2
MRH-Apr 2013
