AT&SF 28 footer

Short but sweet

For several decades before 1900, boxcars with a length of 28' were common on American railroads. 28' cars were often used to haul gold and silver ore in the West. Ore could be loaded only over the trucks of a car, so a shorter car was just as useful for this cargo as a longer one.

According to John Dobyne in Santa Fe Boxcars 1869-1953, there were over 5,000 of these shorty cars on the Santa Fe system by 1883; they had been purchased - without air brakes - in lots of 100 to 400 from at least nine different builders. Over half of the 28' cars were still in service when the entire Santa Fe freight car fleet was renumbered into a logical classification system in 1902, and the last of them did not leave the roster until 1917. As might be expected, they were extensively rebuilt and modernized during their long lifetimes.

The Union Pacific also had several thousand 28' cars on its roster when the road instituted its unified numbering system in 1885. Cars in UP series 32642-33681 were nearly identical to the Santa Fe cars, with the most visible difference being the wooden side ladders. A good number of these UP cars were equipped with air brakes and automatic couplers to meet the congressionally-imposed deadline of August, 1900, but all had been retired by December, 1902.

Our HO scale 28' boxcar is based on several photos of the Santa Fe cars taken in the late 1880s and the 1890s and found in the collections of the Colorado Historical Society and the Western History/Genealogy department of the Denver Public Library. This kit includes the alternate needle beams needed to model either a two truss-rod Santa Fe car from the 1870s and 1880s (see #11050 below), or a four truss-rod Santa Fe or UP car from the 1890s or later (see AT&SF #6528 above and UP #33267 below). The kit can also be modified to represent the 28' cars of other railroads.

Click on these photos for full-size images:

Outside Dimensions of Car	Length 28'3", Width 8'3" over sheathing, Body Height 7'11" from bottom of sheathing to top of roofwalk
Siding / Roof	5¼" beaded siding / 5¼" single-groove roof boards
Lettering	The cars shown above were decaled with official lettering sets from the Silver Crash Car Works PAINTING DEPARTMENT: * Santa Fe Early 28' Boxcars (no heralds, ca. 1878-1888) - $3 if ordered with the kit, $4 without * Santa Fe Later 28' Boxcars (stretched-hide herald, ca.1886-1890 and bar-of-soap herald, ca. 1891-1902) - $4 with the kit, $5 without * Union Pacific 28' Boxcars - $4 with the kit, $5 without Alternately, Art Griffin has "ATSF 12402" (Catalog p. 103, good for 1890s-era car) and "UP67255" (Catalog p. 2, modification needed) at $6 per set
Recommended Trucks	For AT&SF cars: Thielsen swing motion trucks (not included), $8 per pair including Kadee wheelsets from Trout Creek Engineering (part # TC-1). Note that the Thielsen trucks on the prototype AT&SF 28' boxcars had their lower tie bar separated by a few inches from the center of the side frame (see photo of car 6528 above). This feature is not reproduced on the Trout Creek Engineering trucks. If you want to reproduce this feature, your best bet is to use a set of sideframes from the Precision Scale HOn3 SP Thielsen trucks, cat. #31809 in styrene at $2.75/pair or cat. #31789 in brass at $3.75. You will have to construct your own HOn4'8½" bolsters. For Union Pacific cars: Bitter Creek Models #T-16 'Tiffany' trucks ($7.95 a pair)
Estimated Construction Time	Basic kit: 2-3 hours including grab-irons and brake wheel Options requiring extra time: underbody brake rigging on post-1890 cars with air brakes
Kits Available From	Silver Crash Car Works ($27)