# Odd boxcar on EBAY



## cape cod Todd (Jan 3, 2008)

I have never seen this car before and what the heck does it do?? My only guess is it might detect breaks in electrical continuity along the rails? 
IS this odd car home made or actually produced by USAT ???
The link
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dl...K:MEWAX:IT

Check it out.


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## chuck n (Jan 2, 2008)

My guess it that it is a custom (home made) car. It looks like it started out with a depressed center flat car (transformer load) and was built up from there.

If you go to USAT site you will see the depressed center flat.

depressed center flat 


You will notice the open decking in the depressed center. That same pattern shows up in the second picture in the ebay notice. 


Chuck N


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## Dave Meashey (Jan 2, 2008)

Looks like a USA depressed center car was used as the basis for a kitbash. I'm lost with the electronics, but Gregg E. may be able to take a guess on that. Not sure whether the thing really detects any faults or if it's all for show. The seller's description is a little vague on that. Perhaps it's supposed to simulate a Sperry rail detector car (only those are usually self-propelled).

I'm pretty sure that the car was not manufactured in its present form by USA. The seller's description bears that out. 

Yours, 
David Meashey


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## chuck n (Jan 2, 2008)

Dave:

It appears to have electrical pickups on the bottom, and they are staggered so it may send out a signal when it looses contact or a lower voltage. It does have a battery, possibly to send a signal when the primary power is lost.


Chuck


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## Dave Meashey (Jan 2, 2008)

Chuck; 

Yeah, I saw those and was wondering whether they might also be some kind of permanent magnet. We must have posted within seconds of each other, because your post was not showing when I started to type mine. Somebody may have built it to detect electrical dead zones. It would be fun to be able to watch the thing in action and see what it really does. Right now it's sort of a Rube Goldberg machine in my own mind. A strange blend of very old and very modern items. Probably done that way to keep the electronic boards cooled. 

Yours, 
David Meashey


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## chuck n (Jan 2, 2008)

Dave:

It is an interesting car. I hope someone we know gets it and can tell us more about it. I think a volt meter works just as well, but it probably isn't as much fun. 


Chuck


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## Totalwrecker (Feb 26, 2009)

Looks like track cleaning pads to me and the naked electronics is the sound sytem, track power with a battery back up for sound at idle. 

Sure is ugly like that. 

John


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## chuck n (Jan 2, 2008)

John, I think that you are correct. After looking again it agree that they are cleaning pads. 

There are some wires along the bottom, so the track must be supplying power to something.

Chuck


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## kormsen (Oct 27, 2009)

the description says: "This customized car..."


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## blueregal (Jan 3, 2008)

I have a USA work train boxcar that has the big yellow diesel engine in it which makes an annoying sound when hooked up like the generator is running! I don't think this car does anything, but that looks like some sort of sound board to make the annoying sound like I had or something similar to it. This they just converted a dropped flat car into what you see with a generator sound when you want to run it, and some lights that run off the battery! Regal 

BUT buyer beware I will not bid on anything where they don't list the shipping they can honk you after the sale by charging you anything they want after the sale, and hike it depending on what the car brings itself low or high, adjust to that on the shipping. Also is listed as a c4 so that gives a lot of leeway on what shape its in also. I'd steer clear of it for the above two reasons for sure.


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## Greg Elmassian (Jan 3, 2008)

I vote with John, those are definitely track cleaning pads, you can see how they "float" in the chassis? 

Some generic sound card, pretty old, does not look like microprocessor driven, speaker hidden in that box... 

I've never seen the USAT "noise board" so this could be it. 

Greg


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## pete (Jan 2, 2008)

Regal shipping is $12.30.


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## jgallaway81 (Jan 5, 2009)

@import url(http://www.mylargescale.com/Provide...ad.ashx?type=style&file=SyntaxHighlighter.css);@import url(/providers/htmleditorproviders/cehtmleditorprovider/dnngeneral.css); Actually, if you don't look at it it closely, the board does a pretty goo imitation of one of the old huge control boards from some 1920's/1930's laboratory. 

I could see this being a 1930's attempt by some smaller road to be a then-modern rail inspection car.... certainly doesn't hold a candle to the modern Sperry cars though.

I just did a wiki search on the Sperry Rail Service.. I had no idea they dated back to the 1920's: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sperry_Rail_Service


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