Continuing on my quest for an accurate model of the Santa
Fe’s Bay area operations, I was motivated by a post on the Rail Marine Yahoo
group to re-look at my references for boat flats. The railroads used idler cars to reach cars
on the car float without putting the heavy engine on the ramp or float
itself. This was more for traction and
balance rather than ramp or float capacity as the engines at San Francisco and
Oakland’s Alice Street routinely transited the bay on floats to their shoppings
at Richmond. It was important though, to
maintain balance on the floats, and using idler cars as a handle to reach cars
on the back of the float allowed that balance to be more easily maintained.
My principle source is the Work Equipment Car book by Bill
Childers published by the ATSFH&MS.
It can be ordered from the society at http://www.atsfrr.org/store/bookFrt.htm,
although at this writing it is currently out of stock.
I am an engineer and analyst and find it much easier to gain
insights if I can rearrange data and look for patterns. To that end, I transcribed the data in Bill’s
book to an Excel spreadsheet. I find
spreadsheets are a good way to manipulate the data and add information from
other sources. Using the class and
former number info from the Work Car table, I added former class info from the
Live List. This allows the modeler to
make a good stab at the under frame and side sill configuration without a picture. Bill lists 64 unique cars in the series of
191700-191749 which were assigned to boat flat service. Most would have been used at Richmond and
other Bay area points, but their was a Gulf Coast operation between Galveston
and Port Bolivar Texas that operated in the late 30’s. The cars in Bill’s table listed as converted
at Port Bolivar almost certainly operated there.
Based on the former car numbers and class information, you
can infer the identity of the donor cars.
Further work is needed to determine the original cars for the work cars
converted to boat flat service. For
those converted from cars with revenue numbers, the following classes were used
as boat flats during the period that they had dedicated boat flat numbers.
Ft-, Ft-G, Ft-H, Ga-V/Ft-G could have been used with minimal
or no modification.
Bx-B, Bx-13, Bx-D, Bx-O, Bx-W, Fe-L, Rr-R, Rr-S, Sk-H, Sk-V,
Sk-W were former house cars that most likely were cut down to their floors and
used as flat cars.
But which of these cars operated in my era? To answer that question I used the sort
feature in my transcribed spreadsheet to separate the cars that had disposition
dates after the 1943. And here are the
results:
|
Number
|
Class
|
FClass
|
Former #
|
C Date
|
CShop
|
Disp
|
D Date
|
DShop
|
Note
|
|
2/191700
|
|
|
|
4/10/45
|
SF
|
|
|
|
Blt by
ATSF from Scrap
|
|
191701
|
Wt
|
Ft-H
|
92922
|
2/28/23
|
SF
|
|
|
|
|
|
191709
|
|
|
|
6/25/41
|
RD
|
|
|
|
Blt by
ATSF from Scrap
|
|
191710
|
Wx
|
Bx-D
|
21845
|
10/8/31
|
RD
|
|
|
|
|
|
191711
|
Wx
|
Bx-O
|
33717
|
12/19/35
|
RD
|
|
|
|
|
|
191712
|
Wx
|
Bx-O
|
35320
|
3/7/36
|
RD
|
|
|
|
|
|
191713
|
Wx
|
Bx-O
|
35246
|
3/7/36
|
RD
|
|
|
|
|
|
191714
|
Wx
|
Bx-O
|
28160
|
3/7/36
|
RD
|
|
|
|
|
|
191715
|
Wk
|
Sk-V
|
52645
|
2/23/37
|
CY
|
Ret
|
10/29/46
|
SF
|
|
|
191716
|
Wk
|
Sk-W
|
52784
|
2/23/37
|
CY
|
Ret
|
5/23/45
|
SB
|
|
|
191717
|
Wk
|
Sk-W
|
52851
|
2/23/37
|
CY
|
Ret
|
3/17/45
|
SB
|
|
|
191718
|
Wk
|
Sk-W
|
52878
|
2/23/37
|
CY
|
Ret
|
5/15/45
|
SB
|
|
|
191719
|
Wk
|
Sk-V
|
52635
|
2/23/37
|
CY
|
Ret
|
7/2/48
|
RD
|
|
|
191723
|
Wr
|
Rr-S
|
10385
|
11/27/35
|
RD
|
Ret
|
5/17/48
|
SB
|
|
|
191724
|
Wx
|
Bx-O
|
28318
|
11/9/38
|
RD
|
|
|
|
|
|
191725
|
Wx
|
Bx-O
|
28342
|
11/9/38
|
RD
|
Sold
|
9/17/47
|
|
Sold
Hyman Michaels Co.
|
|
191726
|
Wx
|
Bx-O
|
33783
|
11/9/38
|
RD
|
|
|
|
|
|
191727
|
Wx
|
Bx-O
|
34348
|
11/9/38
|
RD
|
|
|
|
|
|
191731
|
Wt
|
|
194974
|
2/1/24
|
RD
|
|
|
|
|
|
191732
|
|
|
|
4/14/41
|
RD
|
|
|
|
Blt by
ATSF from Scrap
|
|
191733
|
|
|
|
4/14/41
|
RD
|
|
|
|
Blt by
ATSF from Scrap
|
|
191734
|
|
|
|
4/14/41
|
RD
|
|
|
|
Blt by
ATSF from Scrap
|
|
191735
|
|
|
|
4/14/41
|
RD
|
|
|
|
Blt by
ATSF from Scrap
|
|
2/191742
|
Wa
|
Ga-V/Ft-G
|
80296
|
10/13/41
|
RD
|
|
|
|
|
|
2/191743
|
Wa
|
Ga-V/Ft-G
|
80391
|
10/13/41
|
RD
|
|
|
|
|
|
2/191744
|
|
|
190764
|
10/13/41
|
RD
|
Sold
|
10/1/46
|
|
|
|
2/191745
|
|
|
190765
|
10/13/41
|
RD
|
Sold
|
10/28/47
|
|
|
|
2/191746
|
Wk
|
Sk-H
|
51446
|
9/19/41
|
LA
|
Ren
|
10/29/45
|
SB
|
Renumber
Second 190741
|
|
2/191749
|
Wt
|
Ft-G
|
94927
|
12/10/38
|
LA
|
|
|
|
|
These are my candidate cars for Bay area boat flats during
WWII. All the others had been retired or
converted to other purposes before 1944.
The Galveston operation had closed down by then and some of the
Galveston cars may have migrated west as the Sk-V based flats that retired at
San Francisco and Richmond seem to indicate.
This is an interesting mix of older flat cars, cut down box and
refrigerator cars, and purpose built cars from scrap materials at the Richmond
Shops.
John Barry
Cameron Park, CA
25 April 2014
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