ship & travel & Grand Canyon slogan

In September and October of 1944 the General American Transportation Corporation delivered 300 steel sheathed box cars to the Santa Fe of AAR modied 1937 standard design. Apart from having steel side sheathing, these cars were essentially identical to the Bx-38 class "War Emergency" single sheathed box cars built by GATC early in 1944 and similar (though not identical) to the Bx-37 class box cars built by Pullman-Standard in 1941-'42. The Bx-43 class cars were delivered with American Steel Foundries A-3 "Ride Control" trucks with built-in snubbers.

Signicant information regarding these cars is available in the Santa Fe Historical Society's publication on box cars as well as the painting and lettering guide compiled by Richard Hendrickson.
 

Paint: When new, car bodies were painted ATSF mineral brown (Floquil #179). Roofs were coated with gritty black anti-slip car cement except for the wood running boards, which were mineral brown. Trucks and underframes were black. Stenciling was white with 36" white and black medallions. System maps were on the right sides and all Bx-43s had "Super Chief" slogans on the left sides. When repainted, underframes and trucks were mineral brown as well as car bodies, but roofs were black roofs until the mid-1950s. From mid-1947 to 1959, maps were replaced with "Ship and Travel Santa Fe All the Way" legends and later style slogans were applied to the left sides. Richard Hendrickson