Route Cards, Part 32: more examples

I have once again been favored with access to the Michael Litant collection of route cards, most retrieved from freight cars in service in the mid- to late 1960s. As I’ve said before, the variety of formats, shapes and sizes remains interesting, and can serve as guidance for those of us trying to reproduce the look of these in model railroad operations. 

As the title of today’s post suggests, this is just the latest in long series of posts like this. To find more, you can use “route cards” as the search term in the search box at right, or perhaps begin with a typical previous post like this one, which is at: https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2023/08/route-cards-part-21-more-examples.html . 

I’ll begin with what is probably just a destination card, used in freight yards everywhere. It’s from the Houton Belt & Terminal. Probably the “SL” is a zone, and 477 is the destination (or perhaps an interchange yard). The car, SP 214336, was from Class B-50-38, built in 1956 at Sacramento, a 50-foot double-door box car. The original card is 3 x 4.5 inches, a common vertical format. 

A second example is a Missouri Pacific card, applied at North Little Rock and destined to Van Buren, Arkansas, probably destination 16. It’s not noted whether the car is loaded or empty. The car, N&W 385323, is a conventional 40-foot steel box car with a six-foot side door. Original dimension of the card are 5 x 3 inches. 

Third in this group is what’s called a transfer card, from one railroad to another, in this case from the Milwaukee Road to the Union Pacific. The car is UP 166458, a 50-foot double-door box car with cushion underframe. The car’s cargo is bags, perhaps paper, burlap or other, destined to Houston, Texas on July 3, 1965. The card is 3 x 4 inches. 

My fourth example  is another transfer card, this one from the Chicago & Eastern Illinois to the Indiana Harbor Belt, the car being URTX 1896, a 40-foot ice refrigerator car of general-service class RS. Marking the contents as “X” may mean it was empty. The card is 4 x 3 inches, and like the one shown above, makes very clear the identity of the destination railroad.  

Next is another vertical-format card, this one from the N&W, for car HERX 2141, evidently being moved to Detroit. The HERX reporting mark was owned by North American Car Corp., used for “bunkerless” refrigerator cars, Class RB, essentially insulated box cars. HERX 2141 was 46 feet long.  The card is 3 x 5 inches. 

My final example is from the Kentucky & Indiana Terminal Railroad, and it’s a card for a specific destination, the Reynolds Metal Plant no. 3 at Louisville, Kentucky, The car is B&O 299128, a loader-equipped 55-foot box car with 8-foot doors. The card is 4 x 3 inches.

To me, all these cards are not only interesting in their own right, but give us ideas for what our model route cards could look like. Even in HO scale, some of the very large initials or numbers on some of these cards could be visible in a scale route card.

Tony Thompson