Revolution in Plywood

At a gaily decorated siding under Manhattan’s Waldorf-Astoria Hotel, railroad men saw something new in freight cars this week. It was the “Unicel,” a gleaming white freight car made almost entirely of plywood. “This,” said John I. Snyder, 40, chairman-president of the Pressed Steel Car Co., “is the first really new freight car built in the U.S. in half a century.”

It is not quite that long. But Snyder’s car is the most radical change in design since steel boxcars were first introduced in 1914. Though it is 30% lighter than a steel car, the plywood car has withstood three times as much pressure in “squeeze” (collision) tests between two cars. Thus it is not only cheaper to haul but could trim the big—$115 million in 1949—railroad bill for damage to freight.

Railroaders gave the new car a polite wait & see reception, meanwhile went on ordering old-style cars (New York Central this week ordered $38 million worth of the standard type). But Snyder, who had put three years of research and $250,000 into Unicel, hoped to change their old habits, was betting that the new car would eventually revolutionize freight car building. In a rearming U.S., which would need all the steel and all the freight cars it could make, Snyder had one big fact on his side: plywood is not nearly as scarce as steel.