ID these doors on 50' Southern boxcars


ICG/SOU

HO & O (3-rail) trainman
So, looking for prototypes to model, I found these pictures.

Southern 50' box with Superior door:
Courtesy of Joe Shaw

Southern 50' box with Pullman Standard door:
Courtesy of Joe Shaw

But which doors are these?
Mystery doors, Courtesy of Joe Shaw

From the difference in paint, it looks like some of these doors are replacements. The last one looks like a PS on top, but Superior on the bottom. I am wondering if the bottom of the original PS door rusted, and instead of replacing the door with a new/used one, Southern just cut off the rusty part, and put a couple of panels of another door on to fix it. Not being able to see the other car makes me wonder if there is a different door on the other side.

I'd like to model one or two of these, but don't know what to call them or how to build them.

Thanks for your help.
 
Trey, I have no idea how it happened but I think your idea is correct. The bottom is a Superior door and the top is a PS door. Too bad there's not a picture of the other side for comparison. I doubt rust was the problem. The more usual cause is forklift damage that bows out the bottom of the door so it won't close. I suspect the damage was bad enough to that door that they just grafted a piece of a Superior door they had in the shops to fix it.
 
Thanks, Jim. I figured if rust were a problem, then we'd see more doors like this. Your forklift explanation makes more sense to me.

I imagined that since they are older cars and as far as I know, PS and Superior aren't making new doors, the folks who repaired it came up with whatever they could.

Looking through this site and others, it would be nice if more boxcars (especially Athearn ones) came with Superior doors. Most everything seems to be Youngstown.
 
I imagined that since they are older cars and as far as I know, PS and Superior aren't making new doors, the folks who repaired it came up with whatever they could.

I don't think that superior exists anymore, and I know for a fact that PS is now a part of Bombardier (Wikipedia said so, it must be true :D). So I doubt either of them would be making new doors. Especially as I found a company that replaces their doors.
 
Jim and Trey,

I think ya'll are both correct. It looks like the bottoms of the doors were cut off and replaced. I found a couple of other cars with the same treatment, here's one;

http://www.rrpicturearchives.net/showPicture.aspx?id=1243347


It looks like most of the doors on the cars in that series, have been replaced... most with full superior door replacements.

If you want to model it, do just as the prototype did.

Walthers old waffle side box cars came with both types of doors... that would make it really easy!

Todd Templeton
 
Wolf is correct. Superior has been out of business for years and PS is owned by Bombadier. I don't think they make freight car doors any longer either. Youngstown is, by far, the largest maker of both sliding and plug doors and is still operating. Both Superior and PS sliding doors were inferior in lateral strength compared to a Youngstown slider. This wasn't a big issue until 1974. Before that, all doors had to be opened by a human. OSHA began allowing powered door opening equipment in 1974 and that's when the lateral strength issue started showing up. The powered openers can exert 6,000 pounds of lateral force against the door and Superior and PS doors began failing at a high rate, one of the reasons you see so many weird combinations of repairs with these two types of doors. Forklifts started having door openers added in about 1990 as bigger and more powerful forklifts came into use. The fact that both companies had basically defective door designs to resist high lateral forces put them out of business. Youngstown doors were simply better designed and that's why you see them on so many boxcars.
 
This is great information!

I've been able to pick up some undecorated Roundhouse 50' waffle boxes, as well as a couple of Walthers 50' sliding door boxcars. The Roundhouse all have plug doors (it's supposed to be a high cube, but it doesn't stand as tall as my other high cubes), and the Walthers have the three sets of doors (Youngstown, Superior, and Pullman Standard), but they are only 9' doors, so I can't put them on, say a ACF ribside box by Athearn or Accurail, unless I glue them on in the open position.

When I finish up the undecs, they'll be inaccurate with the wrong doors, (really the wrong cars, since the waffle boxes Southern has have lots more waffles on them), but in my area, only I will know...and, it's MY railroad. :)
 
Thanks, Josh. I didn't know about them, and they have some nice caboose models (IC and SOU) as well as SOU's whistle posts. I don't think my skills in building are up to these resin kits, though. I'll have to find someone to help me out.
 
... I don't think my skills in building are up to these resin kits, though. I'll have to find someone to help me out.

According to their web site, if you can read instructions, you can build their kits. Resin kits are just like building a styrene kit, except you use CA instead of styrene glue. I have built many resin kits from F&C, Westerfield and Sunshine. I have found them to be no harder than some of the "craftsman" styrene kits on the market.
 
I want to buy a three pack of the SOU Waffles, just because they're unique, but I have to wait until spring.
 



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