I saw five UPFE reefers today that had no doors. They were mixed in with several ARMN reefers (including several 110000 series) where they prepare reefers to be loaded. It seems unlikely that there just happened to be five reefers together that had damaged doors, so I am guessing UP removed them in preparation for scrapping. Their numbers are 462964, 461381, 463037, 462608, 461467. The first two were together and the last three were together.
The only other thing that I could think of, is that maybe those cars came in on different trains. The first 2 were caught be the conductor or Mechanical, or is it time for insperction, and then the other 3 came in on another train, maybe the same day or something, and were also past inspection, things like that. Or you could be correct, time to scrap and have a few extra pennies.
What were the stencil build dates on the cars. If they are over their 40 year dates (or close), the doors may have been salvaged for parts to keep other newer cars in service.
LC