Contractor's 20-ton Box Car #266, built A.O. Shops, Yale c. 1884
BCA Photograph No. 74935
BCA Call No. I-30843
Photo in Onderdonk Album, #5, 9. (BCA Accession No. 98401-006)

It is not known when Onderdonk had the first box car built in his Yale Shops. A number of photographs show box cars in use on various construction trains. One suspects that the cars were built some time in 1883 or 1884 to accommodate the increasing freight that was now being carried by the trains instead of by the sternwheelers. They were certainly in use by April of 1884 since The Inland Sentinel of April 24, 1884, reports a number of box cars having derailed in yet another accident. The paint and lettering may have evolved. An early photograph of a 4-4-0 with a single boxcar crossing the Fraser in 1884 shows a simple lettering scheme. That boxcar is numbered 202. It should also be noted that cattle cars were also numbered in the 200's.