Side to side-- that is, parallel to the floor of the car. Charles Weston
--- On Tue, 8/16/11, John <[email protected]> wrote: From: John <[email protected]> Subject: Re: {S-Scale List} Re: 40' vs. 50' boxcars To: [email protected] Date: Tuesday, August 16, 2011, 9:57 AM On the boards used in the door area. Which way did the wood grain go? John Armstrong ----- Original Message ----- From: Bob Werre To: [email protected] Sent: Tuesday, August 16, 2011 10:49 AM Subject: Re: {S-Scale List} Re: 40' vs. 50' boxcars Dan, To me this is not getting dry at all, or maybe because I'm easily entertained! I would imagine some of the reason the 6 or 8 doors were kept in cars assigned to grain service was that the doors had to have temporary block applied as the car was filled. In my era these were about 16" high and long enough to cover the door. Generally made of overlapping wood, these would be nailed to the inside of the door opening and as the car was starting to fill more of these door units would be added. So a door wider than 8 ft would require a longer and thicker grain door. Later on the heavy planks were replaced with a very heavy cardboard like product but still using some widely spaced planks as additional bracing to hold back the grain. These cardboard grain doors would be pierced with a sharp shovel multiple times to allow the grain to be off loaded. This detail is something required on all grain service cars on your layout--coming to my layout soon! Obviously it's not difficult to see why the old cement hoppers quickly became useful for grain shipments. Also it wasn't rare to lose a man in the loading or off loading process! A few years ago I was assigned the task of documenting the unloading of produce at a series of sidings and warehouses correctly called Produce Row! Mechanical reefers were spotted outside the doors loaded with spuds from Colorado. They were loaded in bulk on both sides of the door to the height of about 4 foot. The door area was piled to a much less height. The unloaded process was accomplished by just washing the potatoes out of the car into an open trough into the buildings. Occasionally a couple of planks were removed and the water hose about the size of a firehose would be moved. Since most of the dirt on the potato was removed by this process the potatoes were then conveyed to a second story where dozens of women would sort the spuds. English was not spoken in this area! Bob Werre PhotoTraxx Bob Werre > > Pieter: > > Of course, there were examples of 40-foot boxcars with larger door > openings than the typical 6-foot door. Some of these were actually the > creation of rebuild programs by various railroad shops during the > 1950's. There were even some double door 40-foot boxcars -- as Bob > mentioned, some of these were in automotive service with interior racks. > > However, one of the issues with increasing the door width of a 40-foot > car was that a 40-foot car with an 8-foot door now had 20% of its > length comprised of door area. Shippers want to "unitize" their load, > creating a tight fit in the car, so that the lading cannot shift and > become damaged. The doorway area of a sliding door car created > particular problems, because the lading in the doorway area could not > be fit snugly up against the door -- otherwise you would never be able > to get the car door open at destination. The only way to prevent the > load from shifting against a sliding door was to provide more blocking > and bracing (at shipper expense). > > As the 1950's progressed, the truck trailer became the standard > vehicle for designing packaging and pallet sizes, etc. A truck load > could be unitized more easily, and loading from the rear was much > easier than having to enter the side of the boxcar, and then pivoting > the load 90 degrees into the boxcar. > > I will stop here -- this can all get fairly dry, but it does help to > explain how the 40-foot boxcar slowly became obsolete, and why, as > modelers, we should try to reflect this evolution in the national > freight car fleet in our model rosters. > > Although the Pacific Rail Shops 50-foot boxcar kits do have some > limitations, they are still the best representatives we have of > typical 1950's 50-foot boxcars in S-scale. > > Dan (but not Dave) Vandermause > Ellicott City, MD > > MARKETPLACE > From a bad 598 to 830 best, where's your score? freecreditscore.com. > <http://global.ard.yahoo.com/SIG=15o9q35o4/M=791726.14818010.14570270.10835568/D=groups/S=1705346731:MKP1/Y=YAHOO/EXP=1313463110/L=ed60f278-c7a1-11e0-961d-47b2b750239e/B=.8S_MdBDRyQ-/J=1313455910765777/K=4riGTmcUjhSdMLKrgxmmjw/A=6449875/R=0/SIG=1308k8a9g/*http://www.freecreditscore.com/dni/default.aspx?SiteVersionID=997&sc=671020&bcd=YGROUPS_BdBest> > > Yahoo! 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