Hi all<div> There was a thread about this on the B&O group if I can find it I'll post here.</div><div>John Musgrove <br><br><div id="ymail_android_signature"><a id="ymail_android_signature_link" href="https://aolapp.onelink.me/eG2g?pid=NativePlacement&c=US_Acquisition_YMktg_320_EmailSignature_AttributionDL&af_sub1=Acquisition&af_sub2=US_YMktg&af_sub3=&af_sub4=100002473&af_sub5=SentFromNewAOLApp__Interstitial_&af_ios_store_cpp=ce85ce34-ad0f-4811-a92b-a172743b064e&af_android_url=https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.aol.mobile.aolapp&listing=email_signature_attribution">Sent from AOL on Android</a></div> <br> <blockquote style="margin: 0 0 20px 0;"> <div style="font-family:Roboto, sans-serif; color:#6D00F6;"> <div>On Tue, Sep 16, 2025 at 5:16 PM, NW Mailing List</div><div><nw-mailing-list@nwhs.org> wrote:</div> </div> <div style="padding: 10px 0 0 20px; margin: 10px 0 0 0; border-left: 1px solid #6D00F6;"> <div id="yiv9023665924">
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What were the grain doors made of?</div>
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Carl Barna</div>
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Emmaus, PA</div>
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<div id="yiv9023665924divRplyFwdMsg" dir="ltr"><font face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="font-size:11pt;" color="#000000"><b>From:</b> NW-Mailing-List <nw-mailing-list-bounces@nwhs.org> on behalf of NW Mailing List <nw-mailing-list@nwhs.org><br>
<b>Sent:</b> Tuesday, September 16, 2025 12:59 PM<br>
<b>To:</b> NW Mailing List <nw-mailing-list@nwhs.org><br>
<b>Subject:</b> Re: A Q about F4 plasterboard flatcars</font>
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<div class="yiv9023665924PlainText">This account reminds me of a minor experience that I had during one of
<br>
my four summers working as a laborer for the N&W. In June and July 1954 <br>
I was the short boom operator on the N&W's weed spraying train as we <br>
sprayed the entire N&W east of Williamson, WV (eat your heart out <br>
railfans !). The other spray train employees' normal jobs were in the <br>
Maintenance of Way department.<br>
<br>
Incidentally, a contractor sprayed west of Williamson.<br>
<br>
Late one day we ran out of spray chemical near Roanoke. To avoid <br>
having us just sit around the next day doing nothing while we waited for <br>
another car of chemical, we were put to work stacking grain doors into <br>
box cars, apparently for shipping somewhere. I may not have known why <br>
we were stacking these fairly heavy doors into box cars, but I can <br>
verify that this was the most strenuous job that this 127-lb weakling <br>
had during his four summers on the N&W.<br>
<br>
Gordon Hamilton<br>
<br>
On 9/16/2025 9:45 AM, NW Mailing List wrote:<br>
> Comrade Andreas Jackovich doth ye inquire about the wrapping paper <br>
> (and red bows) used to protect plasterboard hauled on bulkhead flats.<br>
><br>
> Yes, the product was wrapped, in my experience. The color of the <br>
> wrapping material was white, having the various trade names of the <br>
> manufacturers printed upon it.<br>
><br>
> Many (most?) of the loadings of plywood shipped today are wrapped with <br>
> an almost identical wrapping. From my vantage point as an East Coast <br>
> Weenie, I see a lot of wrapped forest products on the trains coming <br>
> south out of Canada. Not long ago, I counted 13 loads of wrapped <br>
> forest products on the head end of a southbound train coming down from <br>
> the People's Republic of the Maple Leaf. My guess is those wrapped <br>
> bundles are unwrapped at such places as Home Depot and Lowe's... so <br>
> you might be able to find the wrapping material around the dumpsters <br>
> at such businesses.<br>
><br>
> At the time I hired (1964,) palletization was a fairly new thing, and <br>
> many things were still done the old way. I remember seeing, one day, <br>
> at Vinton, a four-man gang unloading a boxcar of lumber... piece by <br>
> piece, stick by stick. Two men in the car, passing the individual <br>
> pieces of lumber, one by one, to two men outside. How inefficient !<br>
><br>
> Also, a great deal of grain was still moving in boxcars. The doors on <br>
> the box cars were not closed, but the openings were spanned by a <br>
> fabricated wooden "grain door," made from heavy planking and nailed in <br>
> place from the inside of the car. Each grain door was about two feet <br>
> high, and two were used on each side, one atop the other. Only <br>
> single-door boxcars were used for this type loading.) The car was <br>
> loaded from the silo by using a big gravity-fed hose, which a man <br>
> inside the car maneuvered around until the grain was about four feet <br>
> deep in the car. To unload, the grain doors were removed and the <br>
> grain spilled out the side of the car. Aluminum "grain shovels" were <br>
> used to clear the car. In some places, a large sheet of aluminum <br>
> functioned as a "plough" to plough the grain out of the car. A chain <br>
> or cable was affixed to the middle of the aluminum sheet, the other <br>
> end being attached to a motorized windlass. One man would drag the <br>
> big aluminum sheet back into the car and sink it down into the grain, <br>
> and the other man would operate the windlass, pulling the plough sheet <br>
> to the door, where the grain was expelled onto the ground. I last saw <br>
> "grain boxes" and "grain doors" in use was shortly before 1970. And <br>
> yes, a LOT of grain leaked out of those cars, and in the Spring one <br>
> would see corn sprouting in the ballast section, on both sides of the <br>
> tracks. Nowadays, the covered hopper has taken over the business of <br>
> the old grain boxcar. (The house I was raised in had a coal furnace, <br>
> and the front sheet of our coal bin was an old grain door from the <br>
> railroad.)<br>
><br>
> Boxcars were graded according to their fitness for the next load. Car <br>
> Inspectors carried tags which would be nailed to the car's tackboard, <br>
> showing the class of the car. I do not remember specifics, but there <br>
> were Class A, B and C cars, and several of those classes were followed <br>
> by a numeral, e.g C-1. Food products, as I recall, had to move in <br>
> Class A Cars A car selected for grain had to be free from holes in <br>
> the floor which would cause leakage of the grain, holes in the roof <br>
> which would admit water, etc. As I recall, Johnson-Carper Furniture <br>
> Co. at North Roanoke would only take Class B or better cars, for their <br>
> loading.<br>
><br>
> When boxcars were dirty (full of dunnage, corn, lime, etc) and thus <br>
> unsuitable for further loading, they would be sent to the Clean Out <br>
> Hole, where gangs of men would clean them out and broom the floors. <br>
> One Clean Out Hole was at Payne, Va, where cars were cleaned out for <br>
> loading by the furniture factories at Bassett and Martinsville. <br>
> Another was at West Roanoke where the old West End Rolling Mill was <br>
> formerly located, on the south side of the yard. To this day, the <br>
> site of the old Clear Out Hole is just a field and you can see it in <br>
> the satellite imagery at coordinates 37.2759, -79.9846. The ground in <br>
> that area was raised about 8 feet in my time at Roanoke, due to the <br>
> trash cleaned out and bulldozed. As I recall, MW (Maintenance of Way) <br>
> gangs were used to clean the cars... not sure about this. At the <br>
> Payne Clean Out Hole, we used to use our .22 pistols to shoot the rats <br>
> which infested the place (they dined sumptously on the grain.) The <br>
> Clean Out Hole at Payne was located at approx coordinates 36.7155, <br>
> -79.9390, along the river bank. There were two clean out tracks, each <br>
> good for probably 25 cars.<br>
><br>
> There were also two quarries at Buchanan, Va, which loaded loose lime <br>
> in boxcars. The local freights (No's 102 and 103, as I recall,) could <br>
> never get by that place without spending a significant amount of time <br>
> switching. It was a nasty place to work in the rain... slick and <br>
> slippery and dangerous underfoot. As I recall, those cars were <br>
> "signboarded," i.e. stencilled Assigned Service - When Empty Return to <br>
> Agent Calera VA for Reloading. They were so filthy that they were <br>
> unsuitable for any other loading.<br>
><br>
> At Buchanan, everything was covered with white powder and on a sunny <br>
> day the bright reflection caused pain to one's eyes. Back then, any <br>
> employee whose duties required him to observe signals was prohibited <br>
> from wearing sunglasses, but at such places we did it anyway, out of <br>
> self defense. Same situation at Kimballton, Va, on the Potts Valley <br>
> Branch, and at Plasterco, Va, on the Saltville Branch. Finally, <br>
> "Neutral Gray" lenses were developed, which would not distort one's <br>
> color perception, and those type lenses were approved for use in Train <br>
> & engine service.<br>
><br>
> At some point, perhaps in the early 1970s, the railroads realized they <br>
> were spending a lot of unnecessary money cleaning cars. Some <br>
> consignees would even use cars they had emptied for dumpsters, and <br>
> load their trash inside them and close the doors before the local <br>
> freight picked up the cars. The railroads worked for years to get such <br>
> practices stopped. The final fix was to return such rolling garbage <br>
> bins to the offending patron, make him unload his own garbage, and <br>
> charge him a per diem charge (daily rental fee) for every day the car <br>
> had been unfit for revenue service... which could have been three weeks !<br>
><br>
> One more story about plasterboard moving on flat cars... There were <br>
> obviously damage claims arising from rough handling of fragile <br>
> materials like plasterboard. So, to identify where the damage was <br>
> occuring, impact recording devices were sometimes attached to the <br>
> loads. We called them "bugs." These devices were wrapped in a plastic <br>
> covering and were secured at one end of the car, adjacent to the <br>
> loaded product. As I recall them, they were cylindrical, perhaps 20 <br>
> inches long and 15 inches in diameter. When we came upon one of <br>
> these bugs, some of us younger Trainmen, in the spirit of merriment <br>
> and funmaking, would take old brake shoes and give the recording <br>
> device several stout whacks, just to furnish the poor soul who read <br>
> the tapes something to wonder about ! Faithful employees, were we <br>
> not... ? Oh, well, it relieved the tedium of our work routines.<br>
><br>
> Comrade Andreas also asks about the relative proportions of loads <br>
> coming out of Plasterco in box cars vs. bulkhead flats. Unfortunately, <br>
> I do not know. When I worked the Saltville Branch, I was a newbie and <br>
> spent most of my time trying to figure out which direction to turn a <br>
> brake wheel, and how to keep from getting screamed at again by the <br>
> grouchy old Conductor. We did move out of Plasterco both bulkhead <br>
> flats and boxcars loaded with plasterboard, but that's all I <br>
> remember. The Conductor never told dumb kid Brakemen like me what <br>
> was in the cars or their destination. If you pressed me for an <br>
> answer, I would say that I don't recall moving more than a half-dozen <br>
> flat cars out of Plasterco at a time, BUT THEN Plasterco got two <br>
> switches a day: one by the morning local, and another by the night <br>
> local. Most of my time on the Saltville Branch was spent on the night <br>
> job.<br>
><br>
> For Saltville details, you might want to consult with Mr. Gary Price, <br>
> who is on this List. Having grown up in Saltville, he knows a lot <br>
> about the area. He used to throw rocks at me when I passed through on <br>
> a train, but now he is a successful entrepreneur and runs his own <br>
> fermented products business in Smyth County, Va.<br>
><br>
> So now we have covered plasterboard, lumber and grain. You asked me <br>
> for the time of day, and I told you how to build a clock. Lots of OId <br>
> Geezer Memories. Please fax in twenty-five cents, to cover postage <br>
> and handling.<br>
><br>
> Cheers from Retirementville. I just passed Mile Post 80 and am now <br>
> shootin' for MP 100, so you better git outta my way, Sonny !<br>
><br>
> -- abram burnett<br>
> Commissioner of the National Strategic Turnip Reserve<br>
> .<br>
><br>
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