Boxcar, 55 Foot, Thrall All-Door

History: Lumber has always been difficult to ship by rail. Box cars provide protection but are hard to load and unload. Flat cars eliminate those problems, but loads have to be tarped to protect them from the weather.

In 1967, Thrall took the best of both ideas and created a unique car that would solve these problems. The All-Door Box Car had no true sidewalls, but was equipped with four large doors which could be opened in pairs. This provided a 25' wide opening that made loading and unloading a breeze! And since it was a box car, the loads were completely enclosed for the entire trip. As the housing boom began in the 1970s, the cars became a common sight at lumber mills and yards across America.

Thrall Door boxcars arrived in Detroit in the early 70s. They were used to carry hardboard products to Ford plants in the Detroit area.

Railroad/Company: Thrall Car Manufacturing Company was a manufacturer of railroad freight cars in Chicago Heights, Illinois from 1917 to 2001. The company was sold to Trinity Industries in 2001. A.J. Thrall established the Union Wagon Company in 1916, selling used and reconditioned rail car components. This became the Thrall Car Manufacturing Company in 1917. By mid-century, under the leadership of Richard L. Duchossois, the company focused on building specialized freight cars, such as high-cube boxcars for auto parts, all-door boxcars for building products, gondolas, rotary-dump gondolas for coal, bulkhead flatcars and centerbeam flatcars for lumber, double-stack container cars, covered hoppers, autorack cars and single-level trailer cars. In the 1980s, Thrall acquired five competing railcar manufacturers, including autorack builders Whitehead & Kales and Portec, and became the largest such manufacturer of these cars in the United States. In 1984, Duchossois purchased the remaining shares of the company owned by the Thrall family, and the company then operated as part of Duchossois Industries. In the 1990s, Thrall had a production capacity of over 16,000 freight cars per year, with more than 3,000 employees.

From 1997, a European subsidiary Thrall Europa manufactured wagons in York, UK. Thrall Europa, York works closed 2002. In 2000, Thrall Europa acquired the railway vehicle manufacturer ČKD Vagonka Studénka (Czech Republic), renamed Thrall Vagonka Studénka. In 2006 Trinity Industries sold off its European operations to International Railway Systems. The closely held company was sold to Trinity Industries, based in Dallas, Texas, in 2001. The company was subsequently renamed Trinity Rail Group, LLC.

From Wikipedia