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Freight and Other Equipment

Soo Line X632

Soo Line X632

Tank Car

History

Soo Line tank car X632 was built in June 1947 by American Car & Foundry. Its original number was 40977. The journals are friction-bearing.

 

GATX 40015

GATX 40015

Tank Car

History

GATX tank car 40015 was built in September 1971 for hauling corn syrup. In 1995 it was donated to the Minnesota Transportation Museum. The journals are roller-bearing with standard rotating end caps.

MNTX 412

MNTX 412

Tank Car

History

Tank car MNTX 412 was built in 1959, probably as GATX 1891. MTM acquired it in the seventies, and has outfitted it as an auxiliary tender for NP 328. (Crews like to refer to it as the “water weenie.”)
Tank Car

photo by Eric Hopp

URTX 37343

Refer

History

Reefers like 37343 were built to keep food or other perishable freight cold. They have roof hatches at each end for loading blocks of ice, which filled small compartments at each end of the car. The cold ice and a thick layer of insulation keep the food cold. (Mechanical refrigeration did not become common until years after 37343 was built.)
To keep the reefers filled with ice, the railroads treated the loaded reefers as top-priority freight, and every few hundred miles kept an ice house where crews would slide blocks of ice from a roof-level platform, across a gangplank, and into the reefer’s ice bunkers.

SOO 134216

SOO 134216

Outside-Braced Box Car

Soo Line 134216 represents the great fleet of grain-hauling boxcars that were once very commonplace in the upper midwest. Vast harvests in Minnesota, Wisconsin, North Dakota, South Dakota, North Dakota, Montana, and Manitoba were hauled from grain elevator to flour mill by Soo Line boxcars. (In the days before modern covered hoppers.)

frisco19424

Frisco 19424

Box Car

History

Built by Pullman-Standard 8-57. Has friction bearing journals. Acquired 1987.

photo by Eric Hopp

Frisco 19434

Box Car

History

Built by Pullman-Standard 8-57. Has friction bearing journals. Acquired 1987.

SOO 43960

SOO 43960

Box Car

History

Built August 1940. Has friction bearings. Acquired 1988. This is one of the few pre-World War II boxcars in our collection.

BN 199491

BN 199491

Box Car

History

Built 8-52 as Great Northern 20522. Has friction bearing journals.

photo by Eric Hopp

CB&Q 41236

Box Car

History

Built November 1959. Acquired 1987 as BN 199625. Repainted in June 2005 back into Chicago, Burlington, & Quincy Chinese red. Color was computer-matched from samples off the car. Has friction bearing journals.

GN 13397

GN 13397

Box Car

GN 13397 was constructed by the Great Northern’s St Cloud shops in August, 1960. It was part of the series 11880-11887 and 13000-13499. 11880-11887 were prototypes rebuilt from other cars, while 13000-13499 were new construction. All were built under Authority for Expenditure 91867. The AAR car type designation was ‘XM’.

Frisco 27998

Frisco 27998

Box Car

History

Built by Pullman-Standard 12-52. Has friction bearing journals.

BN 198604

BN 198604

Box Car

History

Built May 1956. Has friction bearing journals. Stencilled on the center sill is the original car number, GN 3533.

BN 189706

BN 189706

Box Car

History

Built September 1947. Has friction bearing journals. According to the Burlington Northern Car Index web page, maintained by the Friends of the Burlington Northern, 189706 is from series 189000 – 189799, originally CB&Q 29000 – 37749.

GN 138407

GN 138407

Box Car

Built in May of 1967 by Pacific Car & Foundry. It is a 50′ plate-C high capacity box car, with cushion underframe, ABD brakes, roller-bearings, and double plug doors. BNSF donated “identical triplets” 236407, 236660, and 375845 in June 2004. This car series was built by Pacific Car & Foundry in 1967, and delivered in Big Sky Blue.

GN 138660

GN 138660

Box Car

Built in September, 1967 by Pacific Car & Foundry. It is a 50′ plate-C high capacity box car, with cushion underframe, ABD brakes, roller-bearings, and double plug doors. These cars were delivered in the then-new “Big Sky Blue” corporate colors.

BN 375845

BN 375845

Box Car

Built 1967 as Great Northern 138687. It is a 50′ plate-C high capacity box car, with cushion underframe, ABD brakes, roller-bearings, and double plug doors. BNSF donated “identical triplets” 236407, 236660, and 375845 in June 2004.

soo5225

Soo Line 5225

Flat Car

History

Soo Line flat car 5225 was built in July 1941. Journals are friction bearing.

BN 959439

BN 959439

Flat Car

History

Northern Pacific 61248 was built in September 1937. After the Burlington Northern merger, it became BN 959439. (Identification is easy – BN always stencilled the original car number on the underframe.) Acquired by MTM in 1985. Goes with 150-ton crane GN X1735. Has friction bearing journals.

MN&S 900711

MN&S 900711

Flat Car

History

Minneapolis Northfield and Southern 900711 was built in January 1966. 900711 is a Soo Line number – we haven’t sorted out its original MN&S number yet. Acquired by MTM in 2004.

Great Northern X71

Great Northern X71

Steel Caboose

This modern, all-steel caboose was built by the International Car Division of Morrison International Corporation in December, 1963. It was part of two orders for thirty cars (X66 through X85, delivered in ’63, and X86 through X95, delivered in ’64) which were builder’s lot 845. The new steel cabooses replaced older wooden ones, such as X216 and X240.

Northern Pacific 1264

Northern Pacific 1264

Wooden Caboose

For years, this caboose was believed to be Northern Pacific 1294. In 2000 it was placed on display at the Jackson Street Roundhouse and given a cosmetic restoration. While researching its proper appearance, historians discovered it was, in fact, the 1264.

Northern Pacific 1631

Northern Pacific 1631

Wooden Caboose

History

Northern Pacific 1631 was one of the Minnesota Transportation Museum’s first restoration projects. Once such cabooses were a very common sight on Northern Pacific rails. Today any caboose is hard to find, and wooden ones are very rare.

Burlington Northern 11214

Burlington Northern 11214

Wooden Caboose

History

Burlington Northern 11214, formerly Great Northern X-216. Notes published by the Great Northern Railway Historical Society indicate it was assigned to Breckenridge – Hillyard through service in the 1940’s. Donated by BN to the Minnesota Opera Company in December 1978, 11214 is now owned by the Minnesota Transportation Museum.

Chicago Burlington & Quincy 13500

Chicago Burlington & Quincy 13500

Steel Caboose

In 2000, Bandana Square in St. Paul, (formerly the NP’s Como Shops,) donated BN caboose 11445 to the Minnesota Transportation Museum. It had been on display there for close to 20 years, and the roof was starting to leak, but it was still in decent shape. MTM trucked it to Jackson Street, and parked it on old, nearly-buried trackage that wasn’t yet connected. A stencil on the frame says “formerly CB&Q 13500,” so that is how it has been known.

Milwaukee 992040

Milwaukee 992040

Rib-Side Bay Window Caboose

Railroad shops were typically very well equipped, able to handle major locomotive and car overhauls. Some, like the Soo Line’s Shoreham shops in Minneapolis, were even known to construct the occasional steam locomotive from the ground up.

Soo Line 31

Soo Line 31

Extra Wide Vision Steel Caboose

Soo 31, a modern steel wide-vision caboose, was generously donated in mid-2001 by CP Rail. Over the winter of 2001-2002, the interior was repainted and windows reglazed. In spring 2004 the roof was recoated and the paint cleaned. During the winter of 2006-07, a bashed corner of the cupola was repaired, the plated-over windows restored, and the exterior repainted.

Great Northern X1735

Great Northern X1735

Derrick

Great Northern X1735 is a 150-ton Derrick. Also known as a “Big Hook” or just “Wrecking Crane,” it was designed for putting cars and locomotives back on the track after a wreck. Derricks typically come in 100- to 250-ton capacities, so X1735 is a medium-sized example.

Northern Pacific 30

Northern Pacific 30

Russel Snow Plow

History

Northern Pacific 30 is a Russel snow plow. Three plowing attachments are visible: The big wedge up front did most of the work, the wings on each side extend to force snow aside so the train won’t get stuck, and the flanger underneath clears ice out of the flangeways so the train won’t derail.

NP 30 was acquired in 1987 and repainted in 1997. It has not yet had lettering re-applied. It has friction bearings.