newsprint cars CN&CV

Model Railroader Prototype information for the modeler
1

Hi,I´m Christian from Germany,

can anyone say me when started the CN&CV to paint the doors of the newsprint cars yellow and when brown .What does it mean?

Thanks forward!

Happy new year !

2

This website on the Central Vermont

http://www.images.technomuses.ca/?en/stories/central_vermont/c/page/1

has a photo of a yellow door boxcar and info about the car improvements of the 1970s. The caption states:

CSTM/CN005327
The CVR’s 70-tonne boxcar 402552 has a yellow door to indicate that it is dedicated to newsprint service. It was built by the National Steel Car Corporation in 1970.

My educated guess is that because newsprint is so easily damaged and is supposed to be shipped in only the most clean and water tight cars, the yellow doors are a way of marking a box car for dedicated newsprint service, perhaps also due to special cushioning devices. I know cars have long been labled “for newsprint service only” but I suspect that was not noticed in every case hence the yellow doors.

I seem to recollect yellow doors prior to 1970 on the daily newsprint train that came through my old home town on the C&NW but I may be confusing myself.

CN’s own current website drawing of a newsprint boxcar does not show a yellow door by the way, just an all brown car, which suggests to me that the yellow door might be a thing of the past. Doors are often repaired and replaced and I suspect it got too cumbersome to keep a supply of yellow doors on hand, especially if the repair was being done by a foreign road (presumably if the damage was their fault, for example)

http://www.cn.ca/PDF/en_forestnews.pdf

Dave Nelson