These cars were seen on railroads across North America. Harriman cars were developed during the time of Edward Henry Harriman, who controlled the Chicago & Alton Railroad, the Union Pacific, the Southern Pacific, the Illinois Central, the Central of Georgia, the Pacific Mail Steamship Company, Wells Fargo Express Company, and directed the development of the "Common Standard Specifications" among the Associated Lines. This set of specifications allowed parts to be shared across all Harriman-controlled railroads, allowing economical bid prices due to the sheer size of standardized orders, standardized part inventories and methods for car repair.

These cars were designed with the a distinctive arched roof and diamond underframe crossbearers. The Arched Roof construction handled rainy weather better than clerestoy design - once lighting and ventilation problems were solved. Non-Harriman Arched Roof cars, while similar, had fished-belly underframes developed by Pullman Mfg. Co. and copied by others.  Some of these 60-ft cars remained in use until the advent of Amtrak while others became maintenance-of-way cars.

These cars were assigned to carrying catalogs and magazines. The 6-wheel trucks helped carried the extra heavy load.

Illinois Central Railroad had a large fleet of baggage-express cars assigned to magazine loading service, a.k.a. your Time magazine. Car no. 673 - 675 are 1921 and 1924 American Car & Foundry products. They were equipped with 6-wheel trucks to better the distribute the load of magazines more evenly on the rails.

• Extra fine details,
• crisp paint & printing,
• sliding baggage doors,
• nicely weighted for the runner,
• new adjustable draft gear and 6-wheel truck with 36" metal wheelsets,
• MT Couplers.