What Freight Cars Ran on the A&Y?

The Question

Every prototype modeler eventually confronts the same problem: what should actually be in this train? The A&Y owned no freight cars. Every boxcar, hopper, gondola, and tank car that moved over the line came from somewhere else and went somewhere else. That freedom is also a constraint — almost any car is plausible, but not equally plausible, and the difference between “plausible” and “statistically accurate” is the difference between a random collection and a model of how railroading actually worked.

The A&Y is well-served by primary sources that allow a reasoned, evidence-based answer. The methodology described here was developed over several years and presented at RPM meetings including MARPM, Chicagoland RPM, RPM Valley Forge, and RPM-East. The target era is 1934 — the year where the sources overlap most richly.

The Six Sources

Six distinct primary sources were used, each answering a different facet of the question. No single source is sufficient; together they form a cross-referenced picture.

1. 1 Official Railway Equipment Register (ORER), 1934 Breakdown of the Southern Railway’s entire fleet by car type, MCB class, and capacity. Establishes the universe of cars physically available to run on A&Y tracks.
2. 2 ICC Annual Reports — A&Y, 1918–1949 Carload counts by commodity category reported each year by the railroad to the Interstate Commerce Commission. Shows what the railroad was actually carrying, year by year.
3. 3 ICC Statistical Reports (car type data) System-wide ICC reporting on freight car types in service across U.S. railroads — useful for cross-referencing the ORER figures and understanding national fleet composition trends.
4. 4 Traffic and Wheel Reports Southern Railway internal traffic summaries and wheel reports covering the Winston-Salem Division, which adjoins A&Y territory and shares interchange points.
5. 5 Industry-Specific Sources Industry histories, trade journals, and corporate records for the major traffic generators along the A&Y and CF line — furniture factories in Mount Airy and other CF line towns, textile mills at Greensboro (Proximity, Cone) and along the Ramseur branch, hosiery manufacturers in Pilot Mountain and other communities, and the Duke Power plant at Greensboro.
6. 6 Henry F. Snow Conductor Logs, 1934 (transcribed by Al Brown) Car-by-car records for 215 trains on the Southern Railway’s Winston-Salem Division in 1934, capturing car type, road name, commodity, and weight for each car handled. The most granular source and the most directly applicable to the A&Y.

Source 1: The Official Railway Equipment Register

The ORER is a quarterly publication listing every freight car owned by every railroad in North America, organized by road name and car type. The 1934 edition gives the Southern Railway’s fleet broken down by car type and MCB (Master Car Builders) class. Southern cars dominated train consists on the Winston-Salem Division and, by extension, A&Y movements — the character of the Southern’s fleet sets the tone for what a prototypically accurate A&Y train looks like. Cars from interchange partners and private-owner fleets rounded out actual consists.

The Southern’s 1934 fleet totaled 53,853 cars. Boxcars dominate at 50%, with the XM class accounting for 38% of the entire fleet — three of every eight Southern cars encountered was an XM. These were predominantly 36-foot wood double-sheathed cars, a reflection of the Southern’s conservative, lower-cost construction practices through the 1910s and 1920s; the railroad did not begin acquiring significant numbers of 40-foot cars until the late 1930s. Gondolas run at 19% and hoppers at 17%, both higher than many modelers expect. The VA class — ventilated boxcars for produce, citrus, and goods requiring air circulation — accounts for 8% of the fleet.

Southern Railway Fleet — 1934 ORER, by Type and MCB Class

Car Lengths — Which Model to Buy

The raw ORER data includes the listed length for each car series, which translates directly to model selection. The Southern’s fleet is dominated by 36-foot cars across most types — not the 40-foot cars that tend to be more common on hobby shop shelves. Buying the right length matters more than most modelers realize.

The most important practical finding: the typical Southern boxcar in 1934 was a 36-foot wood double-sheathed car. The Southern built smaller, cheaper DS cars through the 1910s and 1920s, suited to the lighter mixed loads of the region, and did not begin acquiring significant numbers of 40-foot cars until a Reconstruction Finance Corporation loan in the late 1930s. Modelers who default to 40-foot boxcars — more common on hobby shop shelves — are building a minority prototype for this era. Similarly, Southern hoppers in 1934 were 30-ft two-bay cars — not the large three-bay 50-ton hoppers that dominate most layout scenes.

Southern XM Boxcar Variants — As Found in the Snow Logs

The Snow conductor logs identify not just “Southern boxcar” but the specific roof and end configuration of each car series, since these details were recorded for car-accounting purposes. The 36-ft SU truss-rod fleet breaks down into several distinct variants, each with a corresponding resin kit:

Why Resin Kits — and Who Makes Them

The variant table above illustrates a fundamental problem for the prototype-accurate modeler: none of these car types are available from major injection-molded manufacturers. To cut a steel mold for an injection-molded car, a manufacturer must sell roughly 100,000 units to recover the tooling cost. That economics demands generic cars with wide lettering variety — not a Hutchins-A-roof, T-Brace-end, 36-foot SU Southern boxcar built by AC&F in 1924. The right car for this fleet exists almost exclusively in short-run resin.

Resin molds produce 20–30 kits before accumulated errors require a new mold. Small batches make niche prototypes viable — especially when the manufacturers are themselves RPM modelers driven by accuracy rather than production volume. The principal sources for this fleet:

• Westerfield Models — Founded by Al Westerfield, who specialized in early small freight cars. Now owned by Andrew Dahmer; still producing. Kits 4101, 4102, 4103, 4105 cover the principal SOU 36-ft XM variants.
• Funaro & Camerlengo (F&C) — Steve Funaro and his wife Sharon Camerlengo. Kits 8040 and 8042 cover the T-Brace and Murphy/Hutchins-B SOU variants and can substitute for several Westerfield numbers.
• Sunshine Models — Dave Madsen, 80+, who builds the masters himself, creates the molds, and casts the resin parts. Covers the 40-ft XAF/XAB furniture cars and selected foreign-road boxcars.
• Yuma C&F — The Southern’s 40-ft 1½-door DS SCS cars and selected C&O boxcars.

Other sources for specific interchange cars: Red Caboose (N&W ‘23 ARA steel boxcars), Accurail (N&W BI hoppers), Intermountain (PRR X29), and a number of individual modeler-produced resin runs for rarer road types. Chad Boas produces details and complete kits for several N&W 40-ft double-door steel boxcar variants.

The ORER fleet breakdown tells you what existed; it doesn’t tell you what ran on a specific branch. For that, you need evidence of what was actually moving — which is where the ICC reports and the conductor logs come in. Note also what the ORER fleet does not explain: the private-owner tank car fleets and the various reefer lines that ran through on interchange. Those cars appear in the Snow logs even though Southern owned essentially none of them.

Source 2: ICC Annual Reports — A&Y Carloads by Commodity

The Interstate Commerce Commission required railroads to report annual carload statistics broken down by commodity class. The A&Y’s filings survive in the ICC annual reports from the late 1910s through the end of independent operation in 1950. These numbers answer a fundamental question: what was the railroad moving?

The A&Y’s traffic was dominated by four commodity categories: Mines products (coal, clay, stone), Forest products (lumber, poles, pulpwood), Manufactures (furniture, textiles, machinery, tobacco products), and Agricultural products (grain, feed, farm supplies). The proportions shifted over the decades as the Egypt Coal Mine closed (1928), the furniture industry grew, and wartime traffic surged.

A&Y Carloads by Commodity Category — Selected Years

★ = modeling target year. Mines total for 1929 reflects Egypt Coal Mine closure (1928); the subsequent decline is permanent. Source: ICC Annual Reports as summarized in A&Y annual report summaries.

The commodity mix translates directly to car types. Mines products move in hoppers and gondolas. Forest products move on flatcars and in boxcars. Manufactures — furniture, textiles, tobacco — move overwhelmingly in boxcars. Agricultural products including grain move in boxcars; livestock in stock cars. The 1934 ratio of roughly 33% Mines+Forests to 31% Manufactures suggests a roughly equal split between hopper/gondola and boxcar traffic — but the conductor logs refine this picture considerably.

Sources 3–5: ICC Statistical Reports, Traffic Reports, and Industry Records

Source 3: ICC Statistical Reports

The ICC compiled system-wide statistics on freight car types in interchange service, published in annual statistical supplements. These reports confirm whether the ORER figures are representative and allow comparison of Southern Railway fleet composition against national averages. They also document the national shift from wood to steel construction in specific car classes — relevant for modelers deciding which body style is appropriate for a given year.

Source 4: Southern Railway Traffic and Wheel Reports

The Southern Railway’s internal reporting documented car movements by division, including the Winston-Salem Division that adjoins A&Y territory. Wheel reports record every car that passed a given point, and traffic reports summarize car type and road name distribution for specific train symbols. The Winston-Salem Division data is directly applicable because it shares interchange points at Greensboro (with the A&Y, ACL, and N&W), Winston-Salem (with the N&W and original Norfolk & Southern), and High Point (A&Y junction).

Source 5: Industry-Specific Records

The industries along the A&Y and CF line are documented in industry histories, trade directories, and local business records. Furniture manufacturing concentrated in Mount Airy and other towns along the CF line — these were almost exclusively boxcar shippers. Greensboro’s textile industry was served by the Furnace Branch, the A&Y’s industrial spur network reaching Proximity Mills, Cone Mills, and other major textile operations in the city; textiles move in boxcars. The Ramseur branch served additional textile towns along the Deep River — Franklinville and neighboring communities — adding more boxcar-dominant traffic from that end of the line. Hosiery manufacturing at Pilot Mountain and other CF line towns contributed smaller but consistent boxcar movements. The Duke Power coal plant at Greensboro and the Gulf clay pit at Gulf, NC (shipping brick and terra cotta pipe) represent the principal sources of hopper and gondola traffic on the line. These records help weight the commodity categories from the ICC reports toward specific car types and specific locations on the railroad.

Source 6: The Henry F. Snow Conductor Logs

The most granular source — and arguably the most important — is the set of conductor logs kept by Henry F. Snow on the Southern Railway’s Winston-Salem Division in 1934, later transcribed by historian Al Brown. Snow recorded 215 trains during his working year, capturing for each car handled: car type, reporting mark (road name), car number, commodity loaded or empty, and in many cases the weight.

This is primary evidence of what actually ran — not what could have run, not what the ORER says existed, but what a working conductor wrote in his book on a specific day on a specific train. For the modeler, it is the ground truth against which all other sources are measured.

Snow’s records cover mixed trains (locals) and through freights on the same division that received A&Y interchange traffic at Greensboro and High Point. The top commodity entries (by car count) across all 215 trains:

Snow Logs — Top Commodities by Car Count, 1934

The dominant presence of empties reflects normal railroad operation — cars move loaded in one direction and return empty. The high furniture count reflects the High Point / Thomasville furniture district that the A&Y served directly. The tank car total, though appearing modest, translates to a significant percentage of total cars because tank cars make relatively few trips compared to boxcars. The 55 sugar cars are a useful “floor” number — a commodity present but minor, justifying an occasional Domino or C&H reefer or boxcar without making it a dominant type.

The Answer: Fleet Composition

Combining the six sources produces a statistically defensible fleet composition for the A&Y circa 1934. The analysis was applied to a target layout fleet of approximately 200 cars — a practical number for most HO model railroads.

Road Name Distribution — Tier Analysis

Road name distribution was derived from the Snow conductor logs, ORER fleet sizes, and the A&Y’s interchange connections. The tier structure reflects frequency of appearance: Tier 1 roads are present in every train; Tier 2 roads appear regularly; Tier 3 roads warrant a car or two in a full fleet; Tier 4 roads are occasional guests.

Note: Southern and N&W together account for 70% of cars. Focus modeling budget accordingly — get SOU and N&W right first.

Mixed Trains vs. Through Freights

One of the more interesting findings from the Snow log analysis is that the car-type mix differs significantly between mixed trains (locals that handle individual cars at way stations) and through freights (symbol trains running between major terminals). This distinction, sometimes called the Gilbert-Nelson hypothesis after the modelers who first articulated it for layout planning, has practical implications for how you make up a train.

Car Type Mix by Train Class — Winston-Salem Division 1934

For the A&Y modeler, the practical takeaway is clear. The A&Y’s own trains were a mix of local freight runs and through movements. The local mixed trains — picking up at Gulf, Coleridge, Worthville, and the furniture district sidings — would show a high proportion of boxcars with scattered tank cars and occasional flats. The through freights to Greensboro would carry a heavier coal and hopper component. Making up a local for the High Point branch requires a different mix than making up a southbound through freight.

Ongoing Work and Limitations

This analysis has known gaps. The Snow conductor logs cover the Winston-Salem Division, which is adjacent to but not the same as the A&Y proper; the translation from one to the other involves an assumption that interchange patterns were similar, which is reasonable but not proven. The ORER fleet figures for 1934 are the most reliable data point, but determining which cars actually reached the A&Y — as opposed to the broader Southern system — requires inference.

The ICC Annual Reports give commodity tonnage, not car counts directly, and the conversion from carloads by commodity to car types involves assumptions about average loads and car-type assignment that can be debated. The figures presented here represent the best current synthesis; they will be refined as additional primary sources become available.

Additional work in progress includes analyzing the A&Y–Southern correspondence files (1916–1950) for mentions of car shortages by type, which would provide independent evidence of which car types were in demand on the line, and examining the ICC valuation-era engineering notes for evidence of industry sidings and their likely traffic patterns.

If you have access to primary sources relating to A&Y freight traffic — conductor logs, wheel reports, industry records, or ICC filings — please contact the site.