Wednesday, March 15, 2017

Old House 71

If this house reminds you of a railroad car, that's because it is a railroad car. It's a "camp car," which were used as living quarters by railroad maintenance of way (MOW) employees when they were out building or repairing tracks.
Railroad cars used to be built of wood, but were phased out of service by 1950, in favor of safer steel cars. The surplus cars were often repurposed for storage or, in this case, housing.
Camp cars (AKA cabin cars, crew cars, or bunk cars), are no longer used in the U.S., except by the Norfolk Southern Railway. Judging by its location, Cuervo, NM, I imagine this car was used on the Chicago, Rock Island and Pacific Railroad or maybe the Southern Pacific. Judging by the lack of a steel frame, I'm guessing it's quite old.
This is only the second wood MOW car I've encountered outside of a museum, the other is 2,000 miles away, an X23 class car (PRR 499327), in Enola, Pennsylvania.

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