I spotted this item in the announcements section of Model Railroader a couple issues back. I sometimes use the company's product, and plus I have a penchant for 40' wood box cars, so I picked one up. The car is offered by Philadelphia Division and is based on an Accurail kit. More info can be found here: Model Railroader Magazine - Model Railroading, Trains, Track Plans - News and products for the week of February 22, 2007
One thing that caught me somewhat off guard after receiving it was it's build date - 1949. Because of the wood construction, I expected it to have an earlier build date than it does. I've narrowed my interest down to cars you might see on the railroads in the late thirties, so I'll have to ignore this "anomaly" (obviously, I didn't do any research before buying! :mrgreen: )
In hindsight, my guess is that wood was used for safety - when storing gun powders, you want to use a vessel that will come apart prior to too much pressure building up inside (the latter is often referred to as a "bomb").
One thing that caught me somewhat off guard after receiving it was it's build date - 1949. Because of the wood construction, I expected it to have an earlier build date than it does. I've narrowed my interest down to cars you might see on the railroads in the late thirties, so I'll have to ignore this "anomaly" (obviously, I didn't do any research before buying! :mrgreen: )
In hindsight, my guess is that wood was used for safety - when storing gun powders, you want to use a vessel that will come apart prior to too much pressure building up inside (the latter is often referred to as a "bomb").