An Ancient Boxcar
Progress is a steam roller with anything in its sights standing zero chance. Here, a farm, one that was vacated only a short time ago and now sitting empty (but kept up), an ever-growing bedroom community expanding around it with the land under petition of redevelopment (according to Cochrane Alberta town records). And with that, soon enough all that is seen may go bye-bye. Or maybe it’s happened already? The shots are from some months back. There’s a post-war era house, a fine old barn dating back some time before, some odd outbuildings and most interesting to us, an old wooden boxcar.
Being used as shed, it’s an ancient one dating back easily a hundred plus years, give or take. We look close to see a car number, using our zoom lens, but it’s long since faded away. With it, we could have had a history. It’s not odd to see old boxcars made into utility buildings like this – they could be had cheap when retired from service – but to see a survivor made of wood is quite a delight. They usually rot away quickly. It’d be safe to assume this one has been sitting here longer than it was in service. Most cars like this were gone by the 40s/50s. Looks like it was used for hay storage – there was often a horse in the coral next to the boxcar back when the place was occupied.
Might have to go back to see what’s going on. You know, nothing’s forever.
More…
Boxcars!
Short Subjects: reports that for any number of reasons are brief in nature. They might be updates to older articles, previews of posts planned or not yet published, brief snippets of things that don’t fit in anywhere else or subjects that are so obscure that information on them can’t be found. Or sometimes we just ramble on about Lord knows what.
If you need any more information on what we talked about here, by all means contact us!
Date of adventure: May, 2018.
Location: Cochrane, AB.
All shots were taken from public property.
At a vacant farm, this old boxcar.
This one dates back a long time.
Some out buildings.
And an empty house.
We see old train cars at different places here in Arizona, New Mexico and Colorado. You guys have interesting posts.
Interesting. And a BIG thank you! So happy you like our work.
That’s neat. There’s an old wooden boxcar south of Airdrie, just off RR294, that’s used as a shed as well.
Yes, I know of that one. It survived a fire as I recall, the house beside it burning down but the boxcar managing to survive. Still, I thinks its days are numbered. I bet developers are eyeing up that land.
I so enjoy yours and Connies travels, I keep you in my prayers.
Joan, thank you we’re touched. Glad you like what we do and Connie sends back hugs and kisses for all kind words of support.
With wooden ends its likely pre 1910.
Yes, that’s about the era we and others seem to think it’s from. Thanks for commenting!
There are four in a field West of chestermere.
Four? I knew of two. Thanks, I’ll have to go looking for them!
“it’s” correct two out of three times. Not bad
Thank you, now the world is a better place. Haha. Thanks, I’ve corrected that. Bet there’s other “mistooks” in the piece too.
Neat find!
We have this knack…
That box car is gorgeous!
I’d like to get up close.