In the recent thread on preserved livestock cars, Randy commented how there appear to be no preserved Southern Pacific cattle cars. I wonder if the common SP "Hydra-Cushion" boxcar will have the same fate?

According to this 1964 brochure put out by the SP, the Hydra-Cushion shock absorber was developed by the SP and Stanford Research Institute. It was highly effective in protecting fragile freight and the SP had a huge fleet of the cars. http://www.carrtracks.com/sphc01.htm






Poll: An innovative SP boxcar, worth preserving? Y/N

I would base these cars "worth" in preservation on their relevance to the themes a specific museum is interested in. I am sure many points could be made in favor of their preservation, but I've felt not many museums have crafted a compelling narrative around 1960s-1970s freight railroading outside of the usual locomotive fetish.

That said, the Pacific Locomotive Association at the Niles Canyon Railway actually has two Hydra Cushion cars they use for storage. Both were built in 1971, making these cars some of the most recently constructed equipment the PLA owns.

SP 693558 Box Pullman Car & Foundry, February 1971, SP Class B-70-57
50' / Steel, double door / (Weight unknown)
History: Built new as Southern Pacific Railroad (SP) #693558; Abandoned on ex-cannery spur, Santa Clara, CA; Donated by Southern Pacific Railroad, (Date unknown); Moved to Niles Canyon in big move of Jan 8, 2005. Stored serviceable, Brightside, CA

SP 693772 Box Pullman Car & Foundry, January 1971, SP Class B-70-57
50' / Steel, double door / (Weight unknown)
History: Built new as Southern Pacific Railroad (SP) #693772; Abandoned on ex-cannery spur, Santa Clara, CA; Donated by Southern Pacific Railroad, (Date unknown); Moved to Niles Canyon in big move of Jan 8, 2005. Stored serviceable, Brightside, CA

Hydra Cushion was one of the early cushioning systems for sliding sill cars. It was complicated, heavy and subject to failure. There were much better systems that came along later. It would be nice if an example was saved, CSRM may have one in their collection. The ACF system, which came from the landing gear of a B-47, was probably the best. I think it would be more important to save the technical documents associated with design than the actual hardware. Sliding sill cars were an excellent effort to cushion freight on railroads. But all of them were expensive, heavy and difficult to do anything with them once worn out. When looking at a sliding sill car, most people would not know the difference unless the railroad advertised its existence with information painted on the side of the car. End of car cushioning, which came along later, had the disadvantage of introducing slack action and train handling problems. The center of car cushion kept a nice ridge train but allowed the individual cars to float within the train. An even more interesting car was the sliding auto rack. Based on the sliding sill, but lighter weigh, the entire rack was allowed to slide back and forth on the flat cars deck. My guess is that none of there cars still exist.

I have to chuckle a bit when I think of SRI Hydra-Cushion boxcars. When I was a sophomore in college, one of my roommates was something of a 'character', and he mentioned one night that he had done some 'riding of the rails'. He somewhat indignantly said he didn't understand what was so great about those Hydra-Cushion cars: he had ridden several of them, and they didn't seem to him to ride any better than normal boxcars...

That is good to hear.

The following excerpt from The Southern Pacific, 1901-1985, by Don L. Hofsommer, underscores how the Hydra-Cushion invention was ground-breaking and led to change throughout the rail industry. On that basis, I think you could make a good case that one or more of these cars should be preserved. This excerpt is from the chapter, "The Russell Years," and talks about the achievements of SP president Donald Russell.

Source: Google books - LINK