Control of Corrosion Damage To Rolling Stock Through Proper Design And Maintenance^⋆ Available to Purchase

The portion of the money spent by the New York Central System to repair ravages of corrosion out of the whole maintenance expenditure is astounding. Overall corrosion repair cost to freight cars was approximately 33.5 percent and to passenger cars 28.9 percent. Figures compiled by the American Association of Railroads show $428,306,950 spent for freight car repairs and $163,773,669 spent for passenger car repairs in 1949 by U. S. railroads. Applying the percentages attributed to corrosion to the total cost of repairs gives cost of corrosion alone as $143,482,828 for freight cars and $47,330,590 for passenger cars. Principal causes of corrosion discovered by New York Central were trapped moisture, due to faulty sealing or design, stress damage due to faulty design, use of wood-metal joints, electrolytic corrosion as a result of dissimilar metals or materials incompatible with metals, poor maintenance and repair practices and improper use of cleaning compounds. Correction of these causes through the proper design and selection of structural and maintenance materials, improved maintenance practices and methods is being consistently pursued.