The new Buckeye Cellulose pulpmill opened in 1953 at Foley, Fla., served by the Live Oak Perry & Gulf. Within a year the ACL built a spur into Foley from Bucell Junction. The first pulp was loaded in July 1953 in 25 ACL 40 foot boxcars that were either new or refurbished at that time, all freshly painted boxcar red. They moved via LOP&G to Perry,Fla., South Georgia to Quitman, Ga., then ACL to Jax for export. The South Georgia's entire consist was the 25 carloads of pulp handled by Southern SW-1 No. 2004 with a Southern bay-window caboose. Now, the question. Does anyone know if a series of ACL 40 foot boxcars can be identified by number in this time frame and if they were new or refurbished at the time?

-- Russell Tedder (srtedder@arkansas.net), July 25, 2003

Answers

John, unfortunately, I do not know the car numbers. However, Larry Goolsby's response has pretty well zeroed me in on the answer. Thanks to both of you for your response and help.

-- Russell Tedder (srtedder@arkansas.net), July 29, 2003.

Russell, the ACL had several series of 40-foot single-door boxcars at that time. The newest ones were class O-27, 24000-24499, built in 1951 with 8-foot doors. The next newest were class O-26, series 21630- 23249, built 1949 with 6-foot doors. But for the kind of loading you describe, I suspect ACL refurbished some of the class O-25 boxcars, series 20000-21629, built 1941-42 with 6-foot doors.

ACL also had some other 40' boxcars, including some rebuilt from USRA composite boxcars in 1953 that possibly could have been the cars in question. However, these rebuilds had 8-foot doors and were equipped with roller-bearing trucks, so I am doubtful they would have been assigned to this service. Anyway, for the record, they were class O- 16-F, series 28200-28299.

Needless to say, we'd like to see a photo or any other documentation you can share about this movement.

-- Larry Goolsby (clgoolsby@att.net), July 26, 2003.

Russell, that shouldn't be a problem. What are the numbers?

John Golden O'Fallon, IL

-- John Golden (Golden1014@yahoo.com), July 26, 2003.