Highlights

The wood in this decking is tongue-and-groove Southern yellow pine. Strong and durable, this material is normally used for trench shoring. The railroad would have used oak, but to have oak custom milled for this project would have cost five times the amount. And we don't plan to put a Sherman tank on it!

The deck material was supplied by:

E W McClave Inc.
1 Harrison Avenue
Harrison, NJ 07029
(973) 483-5670

The tongue-and-groove lumber is nominally 3" x 10" and measures approximately 2.5"x 9".


To bolt the deck onto the flat car, we used a total 371
stainless steel carriage bolts, each 4"x 1/2". This required 371 lock and flat washers. Using stainless steel may have been overkill, but we wanted high performance in the fasteners.

  

 


Project PRR 475532 F30d


Click on any picture for a larger image.

Installing the deck was pretty straightfoward. We just cut each board to length (111") and drilled up through from the bottom with a 1/2" spade bit. We then tapped down the bolts and tightened them up.

The ends of the car, however were a little tricky. We had to follow the outside contour of the car by the hand rails, as well as the contour of the center casting, which was not straight. Many cuts were needed to get the ends to fit right.

The deck complete!