The "Wrong-way Door" box car
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Balto&NY
Joined: Jul 30, 2011
Topics: 76 Replies: 131
Topics: 76
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Lehigh Valley fielded a number of these 40' 40 ton capacity double-sheathed box cars into the 1950's. They were mainly dedicated to hauling bagged flour out of mills in Buffalo NY. Eight hundred bags of flour at 100 lbs. each was a full load. LV and other railroads accessing flour mills shipped to wholesale dealers and jobbers who in turn supplied small, locally owned bakeries in cities towns and villages nation wide. By the end of the 1950's, large commercial bakeries supplying supermarkets were absorbing the small bakery trade. Flour was largely being shipped in bulk, with covered hoppers.
It could be that Lehigh Valley built these cars with left-opening (or 'Wrong-Way") doors, to assure their use in this dedicated work. Cars carrying bagged flour had to be clean, weather tight and not be available to loads that might imperil the transport of flour, which until the mid-1950's was mainly shipped in cloth bags. Multi-layered paper bags for flour were being introduced by then.
The model was scratch-built in styrene, also using an Intermountain "Viking" roof and modified Intermountain AAR underframe. The flour bag load is modeled with pieces of Chiclets gum, suitably treated with Testors Dull Coat to assure no creeping insect critters would be munching on them. The load only fills the doorway, since a full load of Chiclets would greatly overload the car. Pieces of 1"x 1" insulating foam strip fills the interior and holds the load in place. A piece of brown paper bag and some baking powder adds some detail.
EdB - who grew up as a baker's son in the 1940's and 50's.
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Richard E
Joined: Jan 3, 2010
Topics: 74 Replies: 34
Topics: 74
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I would love to have one on my layout, Somebody should make a resin kit. Maybe I will just scratch build. one.
Progress: