Will Whittaker Photo

In November 1916 the Denver & Rio Grande received 1,500 40’ single sheathed Fowler ‘clone’ box cars from Pullman-Standard. The cars copied the ones P-S delivered for the Rock Island in 1915. The only differences were the number of roof ribs (18 for RI and 17 for D&RG) and an additional angle iron brace on the door of the D&RG cars. The cars were numbered 66000-67499. The cars rode on Vulcan trucks their entire lives. In the 1930’s the cars received plain mullion roofs (like the USRA cars) except for 66900-66999, which received Hutchins roofs. After World War II the cars began to receive AB brakes. The ‘Rio Grande’ speed herald began to be added in the early 1940’s. In 10/48, there were still 1386 cars in service. By 10/53 that number had declined to 697 as scrapping started to take its toll on these cars. The photo is of a car in the late 1930’s with the Moffat Tunnel herald. Westerfield offers HO scale kits that cover all variations of these cars (for more information, visit the Westerfield web site.)