So a project to do an O Scale B&A commuter coach has led me to a rabbit hole I didn't quite expect... But hey, makes sense to broach the question here because frankly I'm intrigued.

So as a background, the B&A had these arch roof commuter coaches built by Osgood Bradley. They had gates instead of vestibule doors, no diaphrams. Frankly the cars were simple and meant to move a lot of people. Similar cars showed up on the B&M, NYC's Putnam Division and on the Chicago and Northwestern. Now some CNW cars were built by Pullman, but a fair number were built by Standard Steel in 1927.

At that same time, the Rock Island had coaches being built by Standard Steel, their 2500 series. And when I was perusing the internet this morning, I saw a picture of a Rock Island commuter train with some of those 2500s behind an E unit and thought they looked familiar.

So with that prefaced, given that Standard Steel had the CNW cars on the production line in that period? Could they have derived some of the features for the Rock Island cars from what they were doing for the CNW? They're not exact, but there's decided similarities in parts of the design that raised an eyebrow for me.