The Philadelphia Chapter of the

National Railway Historical Society

Established in 1936

The attention regarding the cause of the derailment of Q300-20 has been focused on a string of US Navy box cars at the back end of the train. The cars, built to haul ammunition, were purchased new by the Navy in the 1950's and are part of about 100 that have recently been reconditioned and repainted by a private contractor in Star NC. The car numbers in Q300's consist were 61-06516, 61-04790, 61-04793, 61-05169, 61-05178, 61-04789, 61-04933, 61-05174, 61-05240, 61-06909, 61-06906, 61-06520, 61-05191, 61-04871, 61-04726 and 61-05171.

The dimensions of the boxcars vary slightly for each car and are generally as follows:

The cars are all white with round red and yellow reflectors on the side panels in a staggered pattern, 10 on each side, 5 on either side of the doors, starting from the end in R/Y/R/Y/R sequence with the red lower than the yellow. This pattern continues on the ends with 2 red reflectors low and toward the corners and 2 yellow reflectors higher and closer to the center line.

There are two types of cars featured here. Most have riveted side panels similar to cars built by Pressed Steel Corporation. Cars 61-04726, 61-05240 and 61-06520 have welded side panels and are similar to PS-1 boxcars built for other railroads. The Pullman Standard Company built two lots for the Navy, USNX 8000 through 8879 in 1952 (DF loaders, later renumbered 28000-28879, then into the 61-0XXXX series), and USN 61-04221 through 61-04260 in 1954.

All cars have CRECO doors, either 5 or 7 panel, with the exception of 61-04790, 61-04793, 61-05171, 61-05174 and 61-05191 which have Youngstown corrugated doors.