The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1907-09-19
A FREIGHT CARS END.
Brings up in the Boneyard to Be
Burned or carted Away PieeemeaI.

(Kansas City Starr
a Big -Four live stock car was
showed on a repair track in the Cy-
press yards of the Missouri Pacific
railroad one day last week. One end
was battered in, the sides were bulged
out and the heavy timbers supporting
the floor were broken and splintered.
1t was out of service, as anyone could
plainly see, although the big capital
letters, &C. c. c. c." looked boldly
even defiantly-at the cars standing on
the numerous storage tracks nearby,
as if to say:s
They will fix me up and 1 will be
good for many more runs before L quit
this business"
But as the car rolled on down the
repair track it creaked and .Sroaned as
if from many aches and pains. At last
it bumped hard against a heavy steel
coal car, which was waiting for new
drawbar. Then it seemed to sigh and
say pathetically:
Il am all in
Hello, old 1855, back again, see"
exclaimed the repair foreman. He
stopped and looked at the car critical
ly. He shook his head and chuckled:
We'll, it's you for the boneyard this
time, sure" He gave a sign to his
gang of wOrkmen.
The boneyard, as it is called, is the
place where all freight cars must go,
soon or late, if they do not happen to
be caught in a wreck and smashed to
pieces or burned along the right of
way. They may cross and recrOsS the
continent, journey from the lakes to
the gulf, take many side trips on
branch lines, tie up in railroad yards
or private switches for years and
years. But at last, when they are old
and worn out, or battered and spIin-
tered beyond repair, they all bring up
ia the boneyard, and there they are
burned.
Five freight cars were ablaze in the
boneyard when the Big Four car was
dumped there that afternoon. Work
men first stripped it of everything of
any value that could be used in car
repairing-the side doors, the better
part of the lumber. the air brakes and
couplings, the springs and some of the
iron. Then they rolled the body off
the trucks and it crashed down the
embankment and landed near a pile of
scrap iron where another car had been
burned. Four or five boys and two
women, with axes, made a rush for it
and began hammering off the splin-
tered boards and carrying them away
to their homes for kindling and fuel.
By and by a man built fire under
each end of the car, and then the
flames cracked about it until nothing
was left but a pile of bent and twisted
iron rods, bolts, nuts and nails.
when a car is out of service, or is
wrecked so it will cost more to repair
it than it is worth, we send it to the
/. -
THAT is the easiest and quickest way
to dispose of it. OF course, we make
use of the trucks, the draw bars.
springs, brake couplings and some of
the woodwork, but we always burn
what is left"
DO all the railroad companies burn
their wornout cars" the foreman was
asked by a bystander.
Some of them do; some of them
don t." he replied. ''Some of the roads
strip the cars of everything of value
then tear them to pieces and sell the
wood at so much for load. But we
burn them. We send an average of a
dozen cars to the boneyard every
month from these yards. 1 do not
know just how many they send to the
bOneyard at other places on the sys-
tenn. Ask me something easy! I could
not begin to tell how many freight
cars the Missouri Pacific owns. our
business here is to repair cars and
we repair hundreds. 1 suppose the
company buys new cars as fast as the
old ones are put out of service. New
cars are coming to us all the time.
There is a string of them over there"
He pointed to a track on which stood
a freight train that had Just pulled
into the yards.
What is the average life of freight
car? Well, there you've got me. I
don't know. Some of them don't last
long; some of them last for years.
What do you do when a car belong
ing to another railroad is too badly
wrecked or worn out to repair?''
IF a car comes to US from another
road and 1T is in such condition that
we can't get it off cur hands. why.
there is nothing to do but destroy it,"
ANOTHER EASTERN PERIL.