portable "step boxes"

Tue Oct 18 14:52:52 EDT 2022

Thanks Jim

Those are Pullman step boxes, painted yellow with black or aluminum tops. 

They were made by the Morton company for a number of places. The Pullman ones, and many other railroad ones were embossed with the name. This is one design, there is another that was one piece cast aluminium, but still heavy.

I’ve never seen an N&W marked one. There were usually one placed with each car with a vestibule not at stations. The N&W may have had the initials painted on, but this drawing does not specify as such, as they were made of aluminum, and no specifications for paint are listed.

https://www.nwhs.org/archivesdb/detail.php?ID=2604

The design shown above is pretty much the same design used today by Amtrak out of sheet metal with an embossed top to be non-slip. 

I know that back in the 1980s, NS had Roanoke foundry cast NS ones with the NS stripe logo on the top for the business cars, they were, I believe, aluminum, but painted tuscan with gold lettering and the car name or number painted on the sides.

Best
Ken Miller

> On Oct 18, 2022, at 1:45 PM, NW Mailing List <nw-mailing-list at nwhs.org> wrote:
> 
> Here is a promotional image, but I'm almost certain they were used at most stations in passenger service.
> 
> https://www.nwhs.org/archivesdb/detail.php?ID=108319
> 
> Jim Brewer
> 
> On Tue, Oct 18, 2022 at 1:38 PM NW Mailing List via NW-Mailing-List <nw-mailing-list at nwhs.org> wrote:
> I worked on the extra board out of Williamson and caught the passenger run to Roke in 1967. We had a step box on that run. 
> As to color it was the same red as the passenger coaches (tuskin red?) and the top was black. There was some gold lettering on it but I don’t remember what it was.
> 
> Larry Reed
> 
> 
> Sent from Yahoo Mail for iPhone
> 
> On Tuesday, October 18, 2022, 10:32 AM, NW Mailing List <nw-mailing-list at nwhs.org> wrote:
> 
> They were not used just at Crewe. I can remember seeing step boxes used at stations with platforms. That first step is pretty high for some people. The portable step boxes were pretty much standard in the 1940's and '50's. And, I think I remember, not just on the N&W.
> 
> Jim Nichols
> 
> On Tuesday, October 18, 2022 at 01:36:28 AM CDT, NW Mailing List via NW-Mailing-List <nw-mailing-list at nwhs.org> wrote:
> 
> 
> Yes - they were used at Crewe for all passenger trains that I saw in the
> 50's and 60's:  Nos 7-8, 25-26, 3-4, 15-16.  They are all the ones that I
> was familiar with. I rode on 7-8 as a child and 3-4 later.
> 
> William M (Bill) Mason 
> wmmason at verizon.net
> 
> 
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