What is the “official” railroad policy with regard to leaving box car doors open?
Every now and again I’ll see a box car rolling down a main line with one or both doors wide open. Seems to me that such a configuration would create a lot of unneccesary drag.
I’ll also see doors left open on cars in publicly-accesssible yards or sidings – a situation which seems like a serious kid-magnet. In this litigation-happy society, I’m surprised everything isn’t bolted up tight.
Can any pro railroaders (or anyone) shed some light?
I fit in the anybody catagory, but I have been reading RR magazines and modeling railroads since the 50s. Generally box car dors are shut, if for nothing more than to stop the door from sliding around during movements and damaging the car and/or door. Many freight cars have a warning printed on them that the door must be closed prior to any movement of the car. This is applicable to all kinds of doors and hatches, not just box car doors. I have seen plenty of car doors open while cars are in movement, either during switching or on the mainline. But generally the car door should be closed and latched. In the present time I suppose theft and liability may be of concern. Some hatches were designed to be left open for ventilation, and ice hatches on the roofs of some cars were left open just for that purpose and some latched in the open position. No flames please as this is a generalization, not a rule.
The rules say they should be closed before moving . Many times open doors are damaged doors , that will not stay closed or that won’t close and are in need of repair .
Closed doors reduce fuel consumption. During the first oil crises in the 1970’s there was an industry wide campaign to have all doors closed. Prior to that, open doors were more common than they are today.
I saw a lot of this while working for the seed plant. In many cases we had to use a chain come-along to open and again to close the boxcar doors. In some cases the car had to be rejected because the door was too badly damaged to seal well enough for shipping the bagged seed. Open doors on a moving train is not something I see very often but it still occurs around here too.
Well the official policy is that the doors are supposed to be closed but that’s not always the case especially if the door is damaged due to the loading/unloading crew doing things like prying the door open with crowbars or forklifts. (This led to Conrail putting hennesy power assist wheels on the sides of some of their boxcars) Or if the train crew is behind schedule and in a hurry they might just ignore it and go. They would probably rather deal with being nagged at for leaving the door open than not being paid as much because they were late.
Back in the late 70’s early 80’s ConRail told us they would not pull a car away from our siding if the doors were not closed. If there was a problem with the car doors, we were supposed to call and report the problem. They would send a man or several men to remedy the problem. All of our leased cars were plug door cars.
Growing up along the Wabash (later N&W) in the 60s, open door empties were pretty common…and yeah, they were kid magnets. The way they discouraged the kids was not to try and run them off, but to inform them of the danger…and give better access to what the kids were after…the old pallets. The huge open air incenerator that they burned left over pallets in was adjacent to our neighborhood. They would leave good condition ones stacked near by for us to get without having to climb in the cars. The playground at the grade school I went to was skirted by the main tracks on one side, and a siding to a local factory on the other. A kick-ball home run was over that siding. When there were cars parked there, they would frequently leave both doors of a car open, so the kids retrieving their ball could climb through, rather than under.
“The very young do not do as they are told.” …so it is best to anticipate that.
Actually, when I worked on the railroad, the policy was to close all doors, and they were usually sealed. However, the locals usually brought cars in as they found them, and the car knockers closed the doors as they inspected the train. I still occasionally see open box cars going down the line, but you will never see an open plug door car. That is a safety hazard, and no car inspector would let it get out of town. But sliding doors are still left open for various reasons. Trainwatching in the Detroit area, I see quite a few open doors on GTW and CN freights, but almost never on NS trains. I guess some railroads are stricter than others on the policy.
When the locals got back to the yard, with their trains, the guys would swarm over the cars, as soon as the trainmaster went home. Picking through the scrap gons, and boxcars. There was usually some good lumber left in the cars, if you didn’t mind pulling a few nails, which had been used to brace loads. When pallets of bricks would break apart, the customers unloading the cars couldn’t be bothered picking up every last brick, and there was always a lot of good bricks left in the cars. Lots of spilled grain too, which the guys would use to feed their rabbits and chickens. And you wouldn’t believe some of the good stuff the auto companies just toss in a scrap gon.
We made forts, tree houses, soap box cars, pigeon coups, rabbit pens, even Christmas nativity scenes out of them. Two neighbor brothers had a whole attic sized slot car empire built entirely out of pallet material. There is still a shed built mostly from pallet material in the neighborhood around 45 years later.
