Information On This Car

davidakridge

Session Creator
This is a car restored and on display in Citronelle, Alabama. I was hoping someone could look at the picture and share some information. Can someone identify the builder, give me an idea of when it was new, and what it was used for? It looks like a luggage or mail car. No one in town knows anything about it.

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It looks like a fairly typical arched-roof car from around the World War I era. Arch-roofed cars weren't unique to one road -- they were made by a variety of manufacturers and used on numerous North American railroads.

The Citronelle Depot Museum, which is apparently operated by the Citronelle Historical Preservation Society, describes the car as a "baggage car" in its brochure, which notes that the car is "used to display the extensive collection of railroad tools and memorabilia connected with the Mobile and Ohio, and the Gulf Mobile and Ohio Railroad." Perhaps the car is connected with one of these rail lines? Myself, I'd call the organization and ask about the car if I wanted info on it -- surely someone there knows where the car came from, how the organization acquired it, etc.

"Baggage car" is commonly used as a generic description of many types of rail cars -- the car could possibly match up with any of the following standard classifications used to describe various U.S. rail cars that were in use by the American Railway Association in about 1910.

Class B Cars

(BA) Baggage Car: A car run in passenger service having wide side doors for the admittance of baggage with or without windows or end doors.

(BE) Baggage Express Car: A car similar to baggage used for either baggage or express matter.

(BX) Express Car: Exclusively for express matter, having suitable side doros, with or without end doors or windows.

Class M Cars

(MA) Postal Car: For use of United States Mail Service, fitted with side doors, with or without mail bag hook, and having suitable apparatus for the sorting and classification of mail in transit, with or without end doors or windows.

(BM) Baggage and Mail Car: A car having two compartments one for baggage and one for mail, separated by bulkheads; the mail end fitted with suitable apparatus for sorting and classifying mail, and with or without mail-bag catchers, with or without end doors or windows, and having suitable side doors.

(MI) Postal Car: Suitable for transporting newspapers or large mail packages for United States Mail Service, having side doors and fitted with stanchions, with or without end doors or windows.

(MR) Postal Storage Car: For United States Mail Service suitable for carrying mail in bulk, without appliances for sorting or classifying, fitted with side doors and stanchions and with or without end doors or windows.
 
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