At midnight on Monday, December 31, 1917, the federal government took control of the U.S. railroad system. Acting under wartime powers granted to him by congress, President Woodrow Wilson had nationalized the railroads when they proved unequal to the task of moving massive amounts of men and materiel for the Great War in Europe. Although hostilities would end in 11 months, government control would last until 1920. The agency that ran the trains was the United States Railroad Administration, or USRA, and one of its chief accomplishments was the building of nearly 100,000 freight cars of five standard designs, to relieve equipment shortages.

What would become the car committee of the USRA had actually started its work in the summer of 1917. Appointed by the Council of National Defense, the committee members were high-ranking executives from Baldwin Locomotive Works, American Car & Foundry, Pullman, and other car builders. Because they had a head start, their finalized car designs were ready within three months of the government takeover. The five body types eventually produced in quantity were a 50-ton steel frame single-sheathed box car, a 40-ton steel frame double-sheathed box car, a 55-ton steel 2-bay hopper, a 50-ton composite drop-bottom gondola, and a 70-ton steel mill gondola.

The double-sheathed car had a heavy fishbelly underframe and steel side framing sandwiched between vertically paneled inner and outer wood walls. The single sheathed design had a straight center sill, exposed steel framing, and a side wall built of 18’ lengths of lumber that were more expensive and harder to obtain than the lumber for double-sheathed cars. The single-sheathed cars, however, were lighter and easier to maintain. The original wartime order was for 25,000 of each type, allocated among 60 railroads.

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