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Conrail Cyclopedia X58 Boxcars: Prototype Info Starting in 1963 in their Holidaysburg Car Shops, the Pennsylvania Railroad began building one of their largest classes of boxcars--the 50' X58. By the time of the Penn Central merger, over 2,000 X58 and X58-subclasses were roaming the rails. The PRR passed on nearly all of these cars to the PC, which later passed them onto Conrail in 1976. Many of these boxcars can still be seen all across the country in a number of paint schemes and body variations. A quick overview of these cars shows that they are all 50'8" rib-sided boxcars, with 10'6" centered plug doors, 20" travel cushioned underframes for shock control, and 70-ton roller bearing trucks with 33" wheels. Subclass variations occur depending on internal equipment and assignments. The following is a brief overview of the X58 subclasses: X58: RBL insulated boxcar for perishable and other such shipments, with some cars equipped with heaters. Capacity of 4,444 cuft. X58A: standard boxcar equipped with special racks for transporting special loads, such as coiled aluminum. Capacity of 4,670 cuft. X58B: standard boxcar but equipped with various types of loader belts. Capacity of 4,963 cuft. X58C: basic boxcar built for general assignments. The X58C has a capacity of 5,101 cuft. Many X58's are further equipped with special internal equipment, such as rub rails, adjustable bulkheads, Transco stage loaders, nailable floors, pallets, and so on. Some cars were permanently assigned to servicing specific industries or plants, while most other cars freely plied the rails across the country. If you're a modeler interested in prototype operations, assigning a specific X58 boxcar to one of your online industries might add some interest to your layout; it would leave loaded, for example, then return empty at a later date to be loaded again. Since the X58 is one of the oldest boxcar classes still in use on Conrail, several body and paint-scheme variations have occurred over the years. The PRR originally built these cars with full height ladders, upper-position brake wheels, and roofwalks. As railroads began 'modernizing' their rolling stock during the late 1960s and 1970s, roofwalks were removed. Many cars also had their brake wheel lowered and ladders shortened to half-height. But many cars have retained their higher position brake wheel. These cars also retain two full-height ladders in order to reach the wheel, one ladder on the side and one ladder on the rear. These cars also retain the roof grabs by the wheel. Of course there are exceptions. CR 368090 has a lowered wheel but retains its full-height ladder. These variations make the cars interesting to model. When you check out the X58 photos on the next page, notice the number of paint-scheme variations on the cars. For example, the Pennsy applied 'DF,' 'DFB,' or 'LD' markings when needed. PC seemed to have just one basic scheme, while Conrail seems to have had a number of scheme and paint-out variations. So while the X58 appears to simply be a plain Conrail boxcar class, there are many choices to be made. You can literally model a small fleet of X58's and never have two identical cars! Copyright (c) 1998-2009 Robert S. Waller. All rights reserved. Photos for personal use only. All rights reserved by original owner of image. Reproduction or redistribution in any form without express written permission is prohibited.