I went to Whitwell (TN) Middle School to see its Holocaust exhibit and cattle car which was used to haul Jews to the concentration camps when Hitler was in power. The bumper pair on each end had one that was flat and the other was sort of a button shape with curved sides. They were placed to match up straight to rounded. Is this the way the actually were when the car was constructed in 1917 or were new ones put on and they just happened to be in that configuration?
They are on the car correctly…the design allows the bumpers to slide sideways slightly when going around curves and keeps them from binding up on each other.
The other comon design is to have all the bumpers slightly rounded.
Thanks, Ed,
This car, and many others, had been renovated for use with grain after WWII then sent to a museum at some point. I wasn’t sure if, maybe, the museum might have made the two flat ones from a piece of sheet steel because two were damaged.