Hello! I’m the proud owner of a mid-century Swedish boxcar, shipped over to Maine decades ago (thereby hangs a tale). It’s full of both official markings in Swedish, and some graffiti — most of which I can translate through Google.

However, there’s a possibility I will have to hire a crane and truck to move it someday, and so I’m trying to gather as much info I can about its technical specs. I can tell this plaque is the key, but I’m having a little trouble deciphering the exact meaning of the different numbers without the cultural context.

Are the numbers in columns A B and C the laden tonnage? Or unladen? What’s the 14000kg referring to? And does anyone know the acronyms up top?

In a perfect world, one of y’all is a Swedish trucker or railroad engineer who knows exactly what we’re looking at here. Thank you!

3 comments

  1. A B and C are different line load categories. on a catigori B rail line you can load the wagon to 22 Swedish tons over each load axle, and this wagon has two load axles.

    1 Swedish ton is 1000kg

    the (14000kg) is the empty load. (14 Swedish tons)

    21 RIV 150 1 603-3 Gsb is the registration number, it can be read that it is a freight wagon that is two-axle and has an openable door and is equipped with an air brake

    RIV and Gsb are are linked to the wagon characteristics.

    RIV means its a part of the international freight wagon agreement.G means its a typ of “box car”

    74 SJ means that it is an old Swedish state railway goods wagon model 74. if you search Gsb sj 74 or SJ 74 on google you should find a model railway version of your wagon.

    14m is the distance in meters between the buffers.

    33.2m^2 is the floor area inside the freight car

    the ABC markings whas inplemented in 1954, so the wagon is younger than that or it has been repainted sometime after 1954.

  3. What’s the story behind this wagon? How and why whas it shipt over and what are you going to do whit it?

    Is there some markings that start whith “Hemstation” follow by a letter combination or town name somewhere? It can have been painted over several times.

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