QUESTION? When did roll up doors come into use for roundhouses, freight doors etc.
Thanks MARK
I don’t recall a roundhouse ever having been originally built with roll-up doors. Most of them would have been built before they were widely available. For freight use, I have seen them in the 1950’s. And for the newfangled diesel and car shops.
I have an 1893 reprint of a merchant’s catalog and the narrative accompanying roll-top desks indicates that they date from the 1870s-1880s sometime. I can’t imagine that it could have been much after the turn of the twentieth century that a flashbulb didn’t go off in someone’s head and the roll-up door was invented. They may not have become popular until after WWII but I would make a WAG that they were around!
Roll Top desks were popular in the latter 1800s but roll up doors as large as required on a roundhouse would not have come into use until possibly after the diesel era began due to the huge size, weight, and need for electric motors to open them. Electric motor technology was still rather primitive in the days of steam engines.