N&W boxcars grain doors

[NW Mailing List]

Boxcars loaded with grain moved with outside doors closed. This 
prevented air currents from blowing grain out of the car. This also 
prevented most moisture, like rain or sleet, from entering the car. It 
discouraged theft and prevented hobos/tramps from a soft bed (as long as 
they did not sink in and suffocate).

     Many boxcars had lines painted on the side walls to indicate how 
high different types of grain could be loaded. Grain doors did not 
exceed this height. The room at the top allowed workers to get in and 
out of the cars. Some RR's had little grain loading doors on the regular 
side door or on the car end near the roof line. This made loading from a 
silo somewhat easier, and allowed inspection in transit if required or 
requested.

     WJPowers

On 11/28/2018 5:14 PM, NW Mailing List wrote:
> Grain door boards were temporary in nature and used as you said to 
> reduce grain spilling out th through the standard sliding boxcar 
> doorways,  but the doors of said cars were still in place on the cars. 
> I don't know for certain if the sliding doors on boxcar loads of grain 
> were left open in transit or not, but I suspect that they might have 
> been closed.
>
> Brent
> ________________________________
> Dr. J. Brent Greer
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> *From:* NW-Mailing-List <nw-mailing-list-bounces at nwhs.org> on behalf 
> of NW Mailing List <nw-mailing-list at nwhs.org>
> *Sent:* Wednesday, November 28, 2018 3:04:22 PM
> *To:* NW Mailing List
> *Subject:* Re: N&W boxcars without doors
>
> In the summer of 1954 I was employed as a laborer on the N&W's weed 
> spray train, and we ran out of chemical for a day or two, so we could 
> not do any spraying until a delayed tank car of chemical showed up.  
> To keep us occupied while we waited for the carload of chemical, we 
> were put to work stacking "grain doors" in the Roanoke Roadway 
> Material (about the most strenuous physical work that I ever did).  
> These wooden grain doors were intended to be added across the inside 
> of a box car's door opening as the level of grain increased in the box 
> car during loading, but I do not remember (or maybe never knew) 
> whether the box cars had sliding doors also, meaning that the grain 
> doors were there to prevent leaking that would have occurred with the 
> sliding doors alone, or whether the grain doors were used without 
> sliding doors.  I suspect the former.  Anybody know?
>
> Gordon Hamilton
>
> On 11/28/2018 11:20 AM, NW Mailing List wrote:
>>
>> Those 40'ers were long used in newsprint service, too.
>>
>> WJPowers
>>
>> On 11/28/2018 10:09 AM, NW Mailing List via NW-Mailing-List wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Was this also practiced during the steam era?
>>>
>>> The door-less box cars didn't make their appearance until the mid-1960s.
>>> The so-called standard box car had been 40 ft. in length with 6 ft. 
>>> doors -
>>> but as time went by, it didn't meet the requirements of some 
>>> shippers.   There
>>> were instances where  tow motors wouldn't clear the six ft. doors.  
>>> Then too,
>>> many-a-box car would be guided to the rip track because the doors 
>>> wouldn't open.
>>> So as plug-door boxes and hy-cube cars entered the scene,  the 
>>> forty-footers
>>> ended their career hauling low-revenue limestone on friction-bearing 
>>> trucks.
>>>                           Harry Bundy
>>>
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