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Boston & Maine 5650 Series Hopper Cars

Index

• Builder's Photo
• Classification Card(s) for series
• Specifications
• ORER data
• ORER Notes
• Discussion, General Notes
• Paint Schemes
• References
• Photographs
• Renumberings/Conversions/Dispositions
• Modeling
• Revision History of this page

Builder's Photo

Does one exist?

B&M Classification Card(s)

Does one exist?

Specifications From Classification Cards

?

ORER data and numbers

ORER Size Data

Description			7/1963	10/1963
				5650-69	5661-2
AAR Mechanical Designation			LO	LO	LO
Inside Dimensions	Length		26'-3"	27'-5"	26'-3"
	Width		9'-8"	9'-6"	9'-8"
	Height
Outside Dimensions	Length		33'-6"	34'-8"	33'-6"
	Width	At Eaves or top of sides or platform	10'-3"	9'-6"	10'-3"
		Extreme Width	10'-3"	10'-1"	10'-3"
	Height from Rail	To Extreme Width	11'-10"	10'-8"	11'-10"
		To Eaves or top of sides or platform	12'-5"	12'-4"	12'-5"
		To Top of Running Board	12'-11"	12'-9"	12'-11"
		To Extreme Height	13'-2"	12'-10"	13'-2"
Door - Side opening	Width
	Height
Capacity	Cu Ft. Level Full		1680	1690	1680
	Pounds		140000	140000

ORER History

ORER Date (Year-Mo.)	Car Numbers	# of Cars	Description
1963 - 07	5650-5666	17	Covered Hopper, Steel
1963 - 10	5650-5669	18	Covered Hopper, Steel (see exceptions)
	5661,5662	2	Covered Hopper, Steel, Exceptions
1964 - 01	(same) (both rows)
1964 - 04	(same) (both rows)
1964 - 07	(same) (both rows)
1964 - 10	(same) (both rows)
1965 - 01	(same) (both rows)
1965 - 04	(same) (both rows)
1965 - 07	(same) (both rows)
1965 - 10	(same) (both rows)
1966 - 01	5650-5669	17	Covered Hopper, Steel (see exceptions)
	5661,5662	2	Covered Hopper, Steel, Exceptions
1966 - 04	(same) (both rows)
1966 - 07	Not listed

ORER Notes

Discussion, General Notes

• A rather short-lived class of cars on the B&M - were they renumbered from something else? Or renumbered TO something else?
• Looks like they were rebuilds of something (maybe regular hoppers?) with (approx) 2' added to height. Square hatches.
• Per Ryan Werner (personal email, but based off a post of his in https://realstmfc.groups.io/g/main on 27-Apr-2024)

  These cars were built by the Reading Company as conversions of their class of their class HTl 70-ton quad hoppers (though heavy rebuild might be a more accurate way of putting it).
  Reading built several batches for itself and one batch for the Central RR of NJ.
  RDG 79200-79249 class LOb
  RDG 79250-79349 class LOc
  RDG 79350-79449 class LOd
  RDG 79450-79549 class LOe
  CNJ 59000-59099 class LOa (later reclassed CNJ 59000-59049 to LOb and CNJ 59050-59099 to LOc to avoid confusion with converted USRA-design hoppers CNJ 65000-65039 also class LOa)
  (CNJ for a time used a car classification scheme similar to that used by RDG.)

  Based on RDG car number data compiled by John Hall, the RDG fleet only lost 7 total by 1/64, so it seems more likely that the source was CNJ.
  To bolster that idea, the differing dimensional data for B&M 5661-5662 appears to exactly match ORER data for CNJ 59100-59149 (LOd), which were variants of the ACF 1790 cuft cars.
  The builder's photos have CNJ 59000-59099 rated for 1800 cu ft and CNJ 59100-59149 rated for 1796 cu ft, but by the 10/57 ORER the capacity ratings are 1690 cu ft and 1680 cu ft, respectively.

Paint Schemes

References or other data

• Magazine/Book article(s)

Photographs

Page	Car #	Photo Date yr-mo-day		Visible?				Markings				Paint Scheme	Herald	Notes
Fallen Flags and Other Railroad Photos (as of 15-Apr-2020) Scroll down to the "B" section, click on the "Boston & Maine (B&M)" link Then scroll down to find the photo. The "Page" column has the "Link" text listed
LO 5640	5650	1965-05	Y	X	A			B&M	G	G	N	original?	small intertwined BM	mis-labelled - actually 5650.
LO 5651	5651	1965-10	Y	X	B			B&M	G	G	N	original?	small intertwined BM

Renumberings/Conversions/Dispositions

Models

Revision History

File History for THIS page

Date	Who	Description
31-Dec-2019	KG Akerboom	Initial release
04-Apr-2020	KG Akerboom	Re-did references/photos section
16-Apr-2020	KG Akerboom	Added more web sites: B&MRRHS Flickr, Fallen Flags, NMRA Archives, Earl Tuson. Also Scott Whitney (NMRO) CDs
05-May-2020	KG Akerboom	Moved ORER notes into separate section
21-Jul-2020	KG Akerboom	"Photos" table - changed "vertical" text to PNG of "sideways" text; added "Markings" columns
07- thru 16-Aug-2020	KG Akerboom	Added ORER data (History only, not dims or notes yet) for 63 more registers, courtesy of James Kinkaid
28-Oct-2022	KG Akerboom	Updated per [almost] complete ORER data
04-Jan-2023	KG Akerboom	Fixed headers and footers...hopefully
29-Apr-2023	KG Akerboom	Added "original" car info per Ryan Werner