Late yesterday afternoon, Schlatter Boys Trucking delivered CR hopper car # 435140 to the Hoosier Valley Railroad Museum. The photos first show the car being moved into a position to remove one of the highway bogies, then the bogie being moved out and the railroad truck being rolled into position under the car. It was a very long process, ending well after dusk, which precluded getting a photo of the car as it sat on HVRM track.

The car is a Class H39 hopper, originally built for the Pennsylvania Railroad as PRR 665244. I checked the internet and couldn't seem to find any firm info on these cars. Some stuff said built in 1955, others 1959 and others in the `60's. Also some photos of PRR H39 cars in black paint, others in freight car red. Information on its PRR heritage is needed.

Les

Les,

think i can help you out on the lettering. we did a similar car at the RMNE many moons ago. #665370 in black. al the pictures i can find show an embarrassment that happened an will not post. they may be here in a very old post. all my files are dated from 2001. anyway i have all the lettering including the greeneville logo in auto-cad.

Al P.

tried to post sample of lettering but need to resize.

Les - Nice find. You’re correct that there isn’t a lot of detailed info on the web. I don’t have much info either. The original H39 was a committee design car by PRR, N&W and C&O in 1958. PRR’s cars were built probably in 1959 through the early 60s initially in Holidaysburg and by Pullman-Standard and Bethlehem that I know of. I can’t verify if Greenville was in on those but with 16K+ cars, it’s highly possible. IIRC, they were built with longer wheelbase ASF Ride Control trucks but I’m not sure. The trucks you have are most likely not originals as the big bunch that lasted into Conrail probably were switched to rollers or conversion kits. PRRHTS might be able to give you more and better info.

"PRR H39 672422, Jeffersonville, Indiana, May 29, 1984, photo by Chuck Zeiler. According to the October 1971 issue of the Official Railway Equipment Register, the PC had 2477 of these cars in the 665000 to 674999 number series rated at 154,000 pounds capacity. In addition, there were 7018 cars in the same number series rated at 140,000 pounds. This particular car is stencilled as one of the 154,000 pounds capacity cars."

Railroad Picture archives has a few others from the series: http://www.rrpicturearchives.net/rsList ... =PRR&cid=5

Also see: http://www.rrpicturearchives.net/showPi ... id=5225787
and http://www.rrpicturearchives.net/showPi ... id=4767363

RMNE has two H39s, one built 1960 and one built 1962 (H39A). The later cars had a simplified lettering style, with one "shadow-less" keystone and simple PRR reporting marks and car number. The 1959-60 group was done as per the Chuck Zeiler photo; one of our cars was painted and lettered this way.

The later cars were built using recycled PRR heavy Andrews trucks, which were replaced with newer Ride-Control trucks during a 1970s PC-CR rebuilding program. The H39s went through a mass retirement in the late 1990s, after many were used in ballast car service without modification.

Howard P.

Les,
Thanks for the post; it is good to see another PRR freight car preserved. The Hooser Valley is getting to be a good place to see classic freight cars.

Ted Miles

Les,

Congratulations on getting the car.

665244 was built by Greenville in 1960. It was one of 1000 cars built there - 665000 through 665999. Source is Pennsylvania Railroad Steel Open Hopper Cars, by Teichmoeller.

JR

Thanks John! Now need to find out whether those cars were originally painted freight car red and also how they were lettered.

Les

The PRR started painting hopper cars black in 1955. So, all of the PRR H39s were black.

CR version was freight car red/brown; PC version might be, I don't recall.

As mentioned above, RMNE has the lettering patterns for the 1959-60 versions with the spelled out "PENNSYLVANIA" (got it right that time, AL P!!) and keystone.

We also may have the PRR prints for the 1962 version with the simplified lettering.

Howard P.

Teichmoeller does have a single photo of an H39 in red oxide paint and simplified PRR lettering. PRR 665532, in Paulsboro, NJ, in December 1978. He is unable to explain this, since the Standard, for the Standard Railroad of the World, was to paint hoppers black by the time that these were built, as stated by Howard P. above. But the color photo is pretty compelling proof that they did paint at least one of them, this way. . .

JR

Photo shows our two H39s; the red one is the H39A, with the 1978-era replacement trucks. The other one was painted black in 2001, and the topcoat hasn't held up well.
The cars were being loaded with ballast in this photo (2016).



Howard P.