MAINE CENTRAL
EASTMAN HEATER CARS
Introduction
The Eastman Car Company designed, leased, and operated numerous insulated box cars in conjunction with a number of New England and Canadian railroads. These cars featured underslung kerosene heaters, and were used in potato and other produce service.
Original Series
The Maine Central Railroad purchased two orders of such cars in 1910 and 1912. The first lot was built by the Laconia Car Company and placed in the 65001-65500 series. The cars featured a steel underframe with wooden superstructure. The underframe was a design shared by other New England road's house cars, and was common on cars built at Keith Car Company, of Sagamore, MA, including the MEC's 1425-1449 series of dairy cars built the same year. With straight center sills and side sills that terminated at the body bolsters, the design also featured a tapered pressed steel end sill; this combination of readily visible features facilitates the identification of these cars even when road name and number cannot be discerned in photos. The cars were equipped with plug doors opening to the right.
All photos Laconia Car Co photo, Laconia, NH, Wayne Gebhardt collection unless noted
North Adams, MA, no date, Brent Michiels collection (Note late teen's rectangular herald. There is another blurrier image of a 65001 series XI with this herald on page 71 of Maine Central Railroad: Mountain Division, with a date of 10/27/17.)
The second order of Eastman Heater cars two years later came from Keith. This lot was numbered in the following 65501-66000 series, sharing the basic construction of wooden superstructure on a steel underframe. However, these cars had a fishbelly center sills and rolled steel end sills. Unlike the previous series, these had left-opening sliding doors with interior swinging doors.
Equipment
Service
Rebuilt as Box Cars
The MEC selected their Eastman heater cars for rebuilding into general service box cars in the mid 1920's. Beginning in 1926 and continuing at least into 1928, employees at the Waterville shops converted as many as 278 cars from the 65001 series into the 30676-31000 series and at least 408 65501 series cars into the 32001-32424 series. There is not yet evidence that the new number series were ever fully "filled" by cars.
MEC Equipment Diagrams, B&MRRHS collection
Photographs (mixed with a bit of conjecture where the photographic record is inadequate,) suggest that the work performed included: removal of the heaters and plug doors (removal of insulation is presumed,) and installation of new sliding doors on the 30676 cars, with the 32001 cars retaining their 5' left sliding exterior doors. The railroad began retiring these cars by the late 1930's, with the cars gone by the end of WWII.
MEC 32000 series box car, left.
Rahway, NJ, 3-3-30, Leslie Jones, Boston Public Library collection
MEC 32131, foreground, MEC 32373, center right.
Portland, ME, 1929, Leslie Jones, Boston Public Library collection
Posted 2/11/20. Updated 9/2/24. Maintained by Earl Tuson