A Q about F4 plasterboard flatcars

Tue Sep 16 20:56:07 EDT 2025

I am attaching a copy of a photo from the 1966 Car and Locomotive Cyclopedia Of American Practice with the caption "Blocking a load of wallboard on a flatcar having Nailable Steel Flooring"  which may be of interest.  I defer to the moderators on whether this can be shared since the publication was Copyright 1966 by Simmmons-Boardman Publishing Company.

As far as grain doors, I recall boxcars on the clean-out track with heavy paper or cardboard that had been installed for grain loading and I remember packages of the product around Indiana grain elevators.  I may have a copy of the advertisement somewhere from the company that made them and will share it if I turn it up.

W. E. Honeycutt

> On 09/16/2025 7:00 PM EDT NW Mailing List via NW-Mailing-List <nw-mailing-list at nwhs.org> wrote:
>  
>  
> Hi all
>  There was a thread about this on the B&O group if I can find it I'll post here.
> John Musgrove 
> 
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> 
> 
> > On Tue, Sep 16, 2025 at 5:16 PM, NW Mailing List
> > <nw-mailing-list at nwhs.org> wrote:
> > 
> > 
> > What were the grain doors made of?
> >  
> > Carl Barna
> > Emmaus, PA
> >  
> > 
> > ---------------------------------------------
> > From: NW-Mailing-List <nw-mailing-list-bounces at nwhs.org> on behalf of NW Mailing List <nw-mailing-list at nwhs.org>
> > Sent: Tuesday, September 16, 2025 12:59 PM
> > To: NW Mailing List <nw-mailing-list at nwhs.org>
> > Subject: Re: A Q about F4 plasterboard flatcars
> >  
> > This account reminds me of a minor experience that I had during one of
> > my four summers working as a laborer for the N&W.  In June and July 1954
> > I was the short boom operator on the N&W's weed spraying train as we
> > sprayed the entire N&W east of Williamson, WV (eat your heart out
> > railfans !).  The other spray train employees' normal jobs were in the
> > Maintenance of Way department.
> > 
> >   Incidentally, a contractor sprayed west of Williamson.
> > 
> >   Late one day we ran out of spray chemical near Roanoke.  To avoid
> > having us just sit around the next day doing nothing while we waited for
> > another car of chemical, we were put to work stacking grain doors into
> > box cars, apparently for shipping somewhere.  I may not have known why
> > we were stacking these fairly heavy doors into box cars, but I can
> > verify that this was the most strenuous job that this 127-lb weakling
> > had during his four summers on the N&W.
> > 
> > Gordon Hamilton
> > 
> > On 9/16/2025 9:45 AM, NW Mailing List wrote:
> > > Comrade Andreas Jackovich doth ye inquire about the wrapping paper
> > > (and red bows) used to protect plasterboard hauled on bulkhead flats.
> > >
> > > Yes, the product was wrapped, in my experience.  The color of the
> > > wrapping material was white, having the various trade names of the
> > > manufacturers printed upon it.
> > >
> > > Many (most?) of the loadings of plywood shipped today are wrapped with
> > > an almost identical wrapping.  From my vantage point as an East Coast
> > > Weenie, I see a lot of wrapped forest products on the trains coming
> > > south out of Canada.  Not long ago, I counted 13 loads of wrapped
> > > forest products on the head end of a southbound train coming down from
> > > the People's Republic of the Maple Leaf.  My guess is those wrapped
> > > bundles are unwrapped at such places as Home Depot and Lowe's...  so
> > > you might be able to find the wrapping material around the dumpsters
> > > at such businesses.
> > >
> > > At the time I hired (1964,) palletization was a fairly new thing, and
> > > many things were still done the old way.  I remember seeing, one day,
> > > at Vinton, a four-man gang unloading a boxcar of lumber... piece by
> > > piece, stick by stick.  Two men in the car, passing the individual
> > > pieces of lumber, one by one, to two men outside.  How inefficient !
> > >
> > > Also, a great deal of grain was still moving in boxcars. The doors on
> > > the box cars were not closed, but the openings were spanned by a
> > > fabricated wooden "grain door," made from heavy planking and nailed in
> > > place from the inside of the car.  Each grain door was about two feet
> > > high, and two were used on each side, one atop the other.  Only
> > > single-door boxcars were used for this type loading.)  The car was
> > > loaded from the silo by using a big gravity-fed hose, which a man
> > > inside the car maneuvered around  until the grain was about four feet
> > > deep in the car.  To unload, the grain doors were removed and the
> > > grain spilled out the side of the car. Aluminum "grain shovels" were
> > > used to clear the car.  In some places, a large sheet of aluminum 
> > > functioned as a "plough" to plough the grain out of the car.  A chain
> > > or cable was affixed to the middle of the aluminum sheet, the other
> > > end being attached to a motorized windlass.  One man would drag the
> > > big aluminum sheet back into the car and sink it down into the grain,
> > > and the other man would operate the windlass, pulling the plough sheet
> > > to the door, where the grain was expelled onto the ground.  I last saw
> > > "grain boxes" and "grain doors" in use was shortly before 1970.  And
> > > yes, a LOT of grain leaked out of those cars, and in the Spring one
> > > would see corn sprouting in the ballast section, on both sides of the
> > > tracks.  Nowadays, the covered hopper has taken over the business of
> > > the old grain boxcar.  (The house I was raised in had a coal furnace,
> > > and the front sheet of our coal bin was an old grain door from the
> > > railroad.)
> > >
> > > Boxcars were graded according to their fitness for the next load.  Car
> > > Inspectors carried tags which would be nailed to the car's tackboard,
> > > showing the class of the car.  I do not remember specifics, but there
> > > were Class A, B and C cars, and several of those classes were followed
> > > by a numeral, e.g C-1.   Food products, as I recall, had to move in
> > > Class A Cars  A car selected for grain had to be free from holes in
> > > the floor which would cause leakage of the grain, holes in the roof
> > > which would admit water, etc.  As I recall, Johnson-Carper Furniture
> > > Co. at North Roanoke would only take Class B or better cars, for their
> > > loading.
> > >
> > > When boxcars were dirty (full of dunnage, corn, lime, etc) and thus
> > > unsuitable for further loading, they would be sent to the Clean Out
> > > Hole, where gangs of men would clean them out and broom the floors. 
> > > One Clean Out Hole was at Payne, Va, where cars were cleaned out for
> > > loading by the furniture factories at Bassett and Martinsville. 
> > > Another was at West Roanoke where the old West End Rolling Mill was
> > > formerly located, on the south side of the yard.  To this day, the
> > > site of the old Clear Out Hole is just a field and you can see it in
> > > the satellite imagery at coordinates 37.2759, -79.9846. The ground in
> > > that area was raised about 8 feet in my time at Roanoke, due to the
> > > trash cleaned out and bulldozed.  As I recall, MW (Maintenance of Way)
> > > gangs were used to clean the cars... not sure about this.  At the
> > > Payne Clean Out Hole, we used to use our .22 pistols to shoot the rats
> > > which infested the place (they dined sumptously on the grain.)  The
> > > Clean Out Hole at Payne was located at approx coordinates 36.7155,
> > > -79.9390, along the river bank.  There were two clean out tracks, each
> > > good for probably 25 cars.
> > >
> > > There were also two quarries at Buchanan, Va, which loaded loose lime
> > > in boxcars. The local freights (No's 102 and 103, as I recall,) could
> > > never get by that place without spending a significant amount of time
> > > switching.  It was a nasty place to work in the rain... slick and
> > > slippery and dangerous underfoot.  As I recall, those cars were
> > > "signboarded," i.e. stencilled Assigned Service - When Empty Return to
> > > Agent Calera VA for Reloading.  They were so filthy that they were
> > > unsuitable for any other loading.
> > >
> > > At Buchanan, everything was covered with white powder and on a sunny
> > > day the bright reflection caused pain to one's eyes.   Back then, any
> > > employee whose duties required him to observe signals was prohibited
> > > from wearing sunglasses, but at such places we did it anyway, out of
> > > self defense.  Same situation at Kimballton, Va, on the Potts Valley
> > > Branch, and at Plasterco, Va, on the Saltville Branch.  Finally,
> > > "Neutral Gray" lenses were developed, which would not distort one's
> > > color perception, and those type lenses were approved for use in Train
> > > & engine service.
> > >
> > > At some point, perhaps in the early 1970s, the railroads realized they
> > > were spending a lot of unnecessary money cleaning cars.  Some
> > > consignees would even use cars they had emptied for dumpsters, and
> > > load their trash inside them and close the doors before the local
> > > freight picked up the cars. The railroads worked for years to get such
> > > practices stopped. The final fix was to return such rolling garbage
> > > bins to the offending patron, make him unload his own garbage, and
> > > charge him a per diem charge (daily rental fee) for every day the car
> > > had been unfit for revenue service... which could have been three weeks !
> > >
> > > One more story about plasterboard moving on flat cars... There were
> > > obviously damage claims arising from rough handling of fragile
> > > materials like plasterboard.  So, to identify where the damage was
> > > occuring, impact recording devices were sometimes attached to the
> > > loads.  We called them "bugs." These devices were wrapped in a plastic
> > > covering and were secured at one end of the car, adjacent to the
> > > loaded product.  As I recall them, they were cylindrical, perhaps 20
> > > inches long and 15 inches in diameter.   When we came upon one of
> > > these bugs, some of us younger Trainmen, in the spirit of merriment
> > > and funmaking, would take old brake shoes and give the recording
> > > device several stout whacks, just to furnish the poor soul who read
> > > the tapes something to wonder about ! Faithful employees, were we
> > > not... ?  Oh, well, it relieved the tedium of our work routines.
> > >
> > > Comrade Andreas also asks about the relative proportions of loads
> > > coming out of Plasterco in box cars vs. bulkhead flats. Unfortunately,
> > > I do not know.  When I worked the Saltville Branch, I was a newbie and
> > > spent most of my time trying to figure out which direction to turn a
> > > brake wheel, and how to keep from getting screamed at again by the
> > > grouchy old Conductor.  We did move out of Plasterco both bulkhead
> > > flats and boxcars loaded with plasterboard, but that's all I
> > > remember.   The Conductor never told dumb kid Brakemen like me what
> > > was in the cars or their destination.  If you pressed me for an
> > > answer, I would say that I don't recall moving more than a half-dozen
> > > flat cars out of Plasterco at a time, BUT THEN Plasterco got two
> > > switches a day:  one by the morning local, and another by the night
> > > local.  Most of my time on the Saltville Branch was spent on the night
> > > job.
> > >
> > > For Saltville details, you might want to consult with Mr. Gary Price,
> > > who is on this List.  Having grown up in Saltville, he knows a lot
> > > about the area.  He used to throw rocks at me when I passed through on
> > > a train, but now he is a successful entrepreneur and runs his own
> > > fermented products business in Smyth County, Va.
> > >
> > > So now we have covered plasterboard, lumber and grain.  You asked me
> > > for the time of day, and I told you how to build a clock.  Lots of OId
> > > Geezer Memories.  Please fax in twenty-five cents, to cover postage
> > > and handling.
> > >
> > > Cheers from Retirementville.  I just passed Mile Post 80 and am now
> > > shootin' for MP 100, so you better git outta my way, Sonny !
> > >
> > > -- abram burnett
> > > Commissioner of the National Strategic Turnip Reserve
> > > .
> > >
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