"The Jack Burgess Files" No. 1 -- Northern Pacific Box Car NP 40513

Many, many years ago, Jack Burgess offered me a modest collection of slides to do with as I saw fit. The subject matter of these images is freight equipment photographed by Jack circa the late 1960s, mostly in the Newark, California (East Bay) area. His intention was to document cars that he would one day model. Fast forward to the present. I thought this blog would be a suitable forum to share Jack's images. I consulted Jack to obtain his blessing to post the images here, along with corresponding information about the prototypes. This is the first of what will be several groups of images.

The image above is from my copy of an NP diagram book. As noted in the information, this class consisted of 520 box cars built by Pacific Car & Foundry in 1937, car nos. 9480-9999. The cars employed typical traits and specialties for the day, including Dreadnaught ends with square corner posts, ARA/AAR-design underframe, "Murphy" rectangular panel roof, wood running boards, Ajax power hand brakes, Westinghouse AB-schedule air brakes, and Youngstown corrugated steel doors with 'early' Camel Roller Lift fixtures. The one feature that made these cars unusual was the use of double sheathed wood over underlying steel structural members for the sides. As a side note, these NP cars were quite different structurally from the GN's numerous double sheathed cars built between 1937-1942.

By the time NP 40513 was photographed at Newark, California in June, 1968, the placard boards on the doors and ends had been lowered, as shown here and the car was no longer in the original 9480-series. It had also been repainted, likely at least two times, the latest featuring the "Main Street of the Northwest" slogan and five-foot Monad medallion with "RAILWAY".

The lighting of this image illustrates the sharp corners of the square corner post Dreadnaught ends. The bottoms of two of the structural steel members may be discerned along the side sill, directly below the "Street of" portion of the slogan, to the right of the door track.

Jack also climbed up to record this view of the Murphy roof and wood running boards. The rivets on the sides of the seam caps are quite evident.

Thank you to Jack for sharing his work.