Article by Christopher Brimley, Project Manager
Today there are 4 major manufacturers of 60’ High-Cube Plate F boxcars. All are used for basically the same purposes, have similar cubic foot capacities and visually look alike. To the casual observer, most model railroaders and railfans couldn’t tell you the differences. In this article we hope to make you more informed to know that while many freight cars might look the same, there are differences and it’s a very good thing to have variety on your layout.
The best example to use for this are the boxcars owned by the TTX Corporation which have been given the reporting marks “TBOX” because it is the only paint scheme that has been applied to all current offerings. TBOX is assigned only for use on 60’ High-Cube Plate F cars. TTX uses different reporting marks for specific types of boxcars with their “Railbox” branding which has become an inseparable part of almost every manifest freight train in North America over the last 50 years. The other Railbox reporting marks that can be seen commonly are as follows:
• ABOX - 50’ Plate C boxcar with a 10’ sliding door and 6’ combination plug door
• RBOX - 50’ Plate B or C boxcar with a 10’ sliding door
• FBOX - 50’ High Cube Plate F boxcar with a 12’ single plug door
• TOFX - 50’ High Cube Plate F boxcar with a 12’ single plug door. Acquired used from other owners
• TBOX - 60’ High-Cube Plate F boxcar with 8’ double plug doors
• TOBX - 60’ High-Cube Plate F boxcar with 8’ double plug doors. Acquired used from other owners
For all of the above variations, all include similar sized cars from various railcar manufacturers. The TBOX of today are built by 4 different railcar manufacturers, these are Trinity, Greenbrier, FreightCar America and National Steel Car. I will guide you through the major differences between each brand in different sections. The major spotting features that we will focus on are those that are easily visible at trackside such as side sills, side sheet posts, door frames, and ends.
Now, let's meet the major players in the TBOX pool.
TRINITY (TRG)
• Cubic Foot Capacity: 7500
• Without horizontal stiffeners
• Classifications: XRH60
• Cubic Foot Capacity: 7500
• With horizontal stiffeners
• Classifications: XRH61A and XRH61B
GUNDERSON/GREENBRIER (GBX)
• Cubic Foot Capacity: 7550
• Without horizontal stiffeners
• Classifications: XGH60, XGH61 and XGH61A
• Cubic Foot Capacity: 7550
• With horizontal stiffeners
• Classifications: XGH61B, XGH61C and XGH61F
NATIONAL STEEL CAR (NSC)
• Cubic Foot Capacity: 7528 & 7538
• Without horizontal stiffeners
• Classifications: XHN60 and XNH61
FREIGHTCAR AMERICA (FCA)
• Cubic Foot Capacity: 7503
• With horizontal stiffeners
• Classifications: XJH61 and XJH61A
SIDE SILLS
When identifying boxcar differences, such as the common 5277 cubic foot boxcar, or any other similar-sized boxcars of the era, the first place I would look is usually the side sill, specifically the notches at or near the trucks. Once you got to know them, you generally could identify what was a Pullman-Standard, Berwick, FMC, or Evans-built car. That methodology doesn’t fly as well here because all builders employ a similar-looking filleted notch, but there are differences.
TRG & GBX cars have a shorter notch where the sill drops down over the trucks. Both also use a smaller radius for the fillet. FCA & NSC have a longer notch that extends the full length of the truck and broader fillet. Another difference is that on TRG and FCA, the side sill doesn’t extend the full length of the car and you are left with a small secondary notch. GBX and NSC extend the full length.
The other notable difference between the different builders is the jacking pad and visible bolts present where the bolster mounts to the side sill. TRG uses a shorter pad that has been welded into position and there are no visible bolster fasteners as it appears it is welded to the sill as well. TRG is the only builder that has a weld bead that runs from the car end to the door posts about a quarter of the way down. GBX has a wide jacking pad that comes farther up the side sill with 4 bolts. There are 2 other bolts above the pad with all mounting the sill to the bolster. NSC has no visible pad and fasteners leaving this car with a clean-looking sill. FCA has only a wide plate below the sill with a healthy collection of bolts above running to the bolster.
SIDE SHEET POSTS
TRG seems to take a slightly different approach with the construction of their cars versus the three other builders. We will get into it more below but TRG uses a non-terminating end design that uses narrower and fewer horizontal rails or ribs than the others. Because of this, they have added flanged plate corner posts that are welded to the side sheets to give them more rigidity. All other builders have the side sheets overlap the sides of the end assemblies and it is welded into place with a weld bead running vertically at the corners with no posts.
Working down the car sides, all builders add 7 posts to either side of the doors. TRG and GBX have built versions with and without 3-rows of horizontal stiffeners. NSC has only built versions without the stiffeners and FCA has only built versions with them.
TRG uses a uniform post size for all locations on their car sides. However, on the late-built versions with the horizontal stiffeners, TRG has extended the post above the bolster about 6” further down the side sill with a chamfered cut at the bottom. All other posts end at a 90 degree angle. For GBX they add a double width post above the bolster on the versions without the horizontal stiffeners. The later-built cars with the stiffeners still have a wider post in this location but it is much less robust than the earlier-built cars.
An observation that I have made relating to all the different builds of cars has to do with the side sheets themselves. On both the NSC and FCA cars, there are visible vertical seams from where the 4 or 5’ wide sheets of metal were welded together to form the side sheets. On TRG and GBX these seams are not visible or are strategically located behind the posts. While this does not suggest one car type is better than another, I appreciate the care and attention to fit and finish that TRG and GBX instituted in their products. Something you wouldn’t necessarily expect to see in something as utilitarian as a boxcar.
DOOR FRAMES
As mentioned previously, the side sill notch design was my go-to location used to identify the builder of a boxcar. On boxcars of the last 25 years, the plug door frame has become that location.
TRG uses a simple design with wide stiles that extend down to a few inches above the door track and welded-on gussets at the bottom. At the threshold, the earlier-built cars only had separately mounted pockets for the doors to lock into. Later cars added a much longer square tube with integrated pockets, that extend up to but not connected to the stiles to allow water to run off through the gap.
GBX has what I would consider a more polished / better-looking (but likely more expensive to fabricate) design. They utilize a clean “U” shaped design that while it is built of separate components, it ends up looking like a one-piece frame. They even went and added fillets to the bottom inside corners. Small gussets have been added to the lower corners of the frame where it mounts to the sill.
Like their trapezoidal side posts, NSC again turns their back to four 90 degree angles and tosses in wedge-shaped stiles. Unlike the two previous builders, NSC also extends the stiles down below the door track and eliminates the gussets opting for a wide, full-height flange. Again, another feature making the NSC cars much easier to identify than the others. At the threshold, NSC adds a ledge that slopes back at the bottom about 45 degrees.
FCA utilizes a design that is very similar to TRG which has confused me in the past. They use a wide stile design with welded-on gussets at the bottom, however, where they blaze their own trail, FCA has the stiles extend below the door track where the TRG remains above. NSC also uses a similar square tube at the threshold but theirs extends fully to the stiles.
NON-TERMINATING ENDS
I consider TRG boxcars to be the mullet of boxcars, business up front (sides), and party in the back (ends). It's a bit wild back there and we have identified 7 different versions that have been used on various builds of boxcars. For the TBOXs, 3 different ends are used depending on the class of the car.
The class XRH60 cars use what we call a 4 over 3 rail design. The XRH61A cars use the same design but have wider ladders. Then on the XRH61B cars, a lighter weight 3 over 2 rail design with a vertical stiffener over the draft box was used. For all designs, TRG uses a much narrower rail design than the other builders which we assume they can due to the flanged corner plates. The end ladders on all versions use a 3-rung ladder with a tall outer stile that is used to support the crossover grab iron. For the 4 over 3 rail design, the crossover grab is supported by a loop eye mounted to the middle rail. On the 3 over 2 ends, a stile spanning 2 rails had to be added to mount the loop eye.
Both GBX and NSC have nearly the same end design. Both use 7 uniformly spaced rails that are fairly tall. However, on the NSC car the rails are spaced slightly further apart. This can be seen where the topmost rail falls on the white excess height panel. Both builds also use 3-rung end ladders with the crossover grab iron being fully mounted to the 3rd rail.
FCA utilizes a 6 rail design with the lower 3 rails spaced closer together than the top 3 rails. They use a similar design as TRG for the end ladders using tall outer stiles for the crossover grab to mount to. It is then supported in the middle with a loop eye bracket.
