Boxcar, 50 Foot, Berwick

History: The US government came up with a scheme to create an artificial incentive for railroads to buy new boxcars. If a railroad increased its boxcar fleet it was allowed to charge other railroads (not the customer) more for their daily use. (That's Per Diem). As an example, if the Crab Orchard and Egyptian acquired a fleet of 500 boxcars (up from zero) , and got them loaded on the ICG, it could charge the ICG for their use at an "Incentive Per Piem" rate that more than paid the CO&G's cost of ownership. So new boxcars got pumped into the system while old boxcars sat idle.

To cater to this demand, Berwick introduced its 50-foot boxcar in 1972 and sold the exterior-post car to more than 35 railroads. Though Berwick stopped production in 1982, the boxcars are still commonly seen throughout North America.

Railroad/Company: The Berwick plant of ACF (American Car & Foundry) was dated back to 1840 one of their largest. Unfortunately, by the early 1960’s the economy was slowing and in November of 1961 AC&F decided to close the doors of the Berwick plant. That same year the Berwick plant was sold to a group of local business people who established the Berwick Forge & Fabricating Corporation. In 1968 it was again sold to the Whittaker Corporation and they continued to build freight cars until 1982/83 when it closed. The Berwick Freight Car Company (a subsidiary of Chicago West Pullman Heavy Industries) was the successor to the Berwick Forge and Fabricating and began operations in 1982/83 and continued until the early 1990's.