Hi dave; Well, except that there were 40 ft cars with 7 and 8 ft single doors and 12, 14 or 15' double doors as well.
While I have not looked hard enough yet, the PRS 50ft car seems to have a somewhat unusual rivet/panel pattern on the sides. It would also be nice to have a 50ft double door car with the rectangular panel roof, like the ATSF Fe-24. Pieter E. Roos --- On Mon, 8/15/11, danvandermause <[email protected]> wrote: > Bob: > You are right about the difficulties of loading automobiles > into boxcars -- no wonder the railroads lost most of the > finished automobile market until the advent of multilevel > flats! > > One factor that drove the conversion from 40 foot to 50 > foot boxcars, that you do not hear a lot about in the model > press, was the increasing use of mechanized loading (fork > lifts)during the 1950's. The typical 6-foot door on a > 40-foot boxcar was a good door size during the days when > labor was cheap and a car could be loaded one box at a time > (or one stick of lumber at a time). The 6-foot door > was also easy to close off with a grain door, for grain > loading. > > Generally, you need at least an 8-foot door width to > effectively utilize a fork lift, and if you are loading > lumber, a 16-foot double door is better. > > So, even if a customer did not necessarily need the extra > cubic capacity of a 50-foot car versus a 40-foot car, the > door width of the newer 50-foot car was often the > determining factor. > > Dan Vandermause > > > > --- In [email protected], > Bob Werre <bob@...> wrote: > > > > Dan, you are absolutely correct about when 50 cars > started their > > invasion. But don't forget about earlier 50 ft > cars assigned to > > furniture service and also many DD cars were used to > haul finished cars > > with internal racks. Those must have been a real > pain to load and > > unload! I think there is a Union Pacific book > showing little Crosley's > > loaded in a boxcar--two aside. Despite Crosley's > being very narrow, I > > don't know how the last driver got out of the car > door. ------------------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/S-Scale/ <*> Your email settings: Individual Email | Traditional <*> To change settings online go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/S-Scale/join (Yahoo! ID required) <*> To change settings via email: [email protected] [email protected] <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [email protected] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
