Southern's Hayne Car Shop-Rx For Car Conditioning

In this day of emphasis on physical fitness, it would not be too far from the mark to call Southern 's Railway's Hayne Car Shop at Spananburg, S.C., "a health club for tired railroad car."

Hayne Shop, one of Southern's two car repair shops, is responsible for the repair work on boxcars, cabooses and passenger cars. This is the only shop on the System doing this particular kind of work. Hayne also repairs couplers, yokes, box car doors, steam connectors and locomotive upholstery.

Skylight inside main freight car shed shows caboose and boxcar lines.

John O. Gerson, Jr., Hayne Shop manager, says of his busy Southern plant: "We have what we like to think is a model operation at Hayne Shop, organized and productive, with an outstanding safety record."

Cars from around the System are directed to Hayne Shop according to their condition to await repairs on a priority basis. On completion, the cars are sent back to service assignments as directed from the control center.

Box car door fit-up is adjusted by car repairer H. E. Vann.

Hayne Shop has been handling freight car repairs since January 2, 1925, when it took over this work from the old Blanding Street Shop in Columbia, S.C. In the mid-1950's the Hayne Shop operation was extensively modernized with an investment of over a million dollars, including the installation of semi- automatic machinery and pull-through cables with "rabbit" tracks. (Why the nickname "rabbit"? The tall metal chocks that engage car axles and move the cars along look like the ears of hidden rabbits scurrying past.) This modernized, push-button system, Mr. Gerson points out, enables the shop to turn out 16 refinished cars per day.

With the demand for freight cars pressing hard on the available supply, the need for speed and efficiency in moving cars through Hayne's repair facilities is constant. The demand is steady and the pressure is continuous.

J. E. Fowler, car-repairer-welder, patches a side sheet.

On arrival at Hayne, cars found to be unfit for further use or too expensive to repair are scrapped. This is a careful judgment and a necessary one, because freight car maintenance is one of the largest single items of railroad expense.

Cars that qualify for treatment are lined up to pass through the shop's car end straightener (a device designed and built at Hayne to do exactly what the name implies). After the ends are straightened, the cars move to the stripping area where bad order flooring and lining are removed as well as defective metal parts on the car body after which the interior of the car is thoroughly washed.

Built at Hayne Shop, the car end straightener is a valuable piece of equipment.

Paint removal from cars, which used to be done by sand blasting, is now accomplished by a more economical method called "grit blasting." It employs re- usable cracked cast iron shot. Also in the windowless grit-blast building, the prime coat of paint is applied to the stripped cars and allowed to dry.

Moving into the main freight car shed, the cars go in on separate tracks according to the kind of car and amount of work involved. Repair work is divided into four lanes-two for boxcars and one each for cabooses and heavily damaged cars, including those involved in derailments.

Car repairer J. E. Brady checks floor nails in boxcar.

Three-man and four-man workstations along the box car and caboose lines have proved most practical for the shop's overall production plan.

Hayne's repair capabilities are designed to keep Southern's rolling stock on the tracks in good working condition to meet the demands of today's keen competition in transportation.

Stenciling area inside finish paint building.

Hayne Car Shop is also designed to operate at maximum efficiency to carry out the railway's policy of up-to-date maintenance of its freight car fleet.

Southern's ability to meet the transportation needs of business and industry in its territory gains strength not only from frequent purchases of new freight cars of various kinds but also from the most effective use of all the cars the railway has. The work done at Hayne Car Shop has an important part to play in helping Southern serve.