Shawn,

It's not quite so simple. Door width depends a lot on the road you model, the traffic it carried, its
interchange partners, and the era.

Dave's study of the 1950 ORER is very enlightening in a general way, but it only reflects a single point
in time. Cars with 8' doors probably made up the majority of new 40' deliveries by 1954 or so.

Cars with 6' doors fell out of favor in the early 1950s, probably due to increased use of forklifts for
palletized loading. Of course, some cars with 6' doors were still being built right up to the end of our
era of interest.

Some roads were big on certain door sizes, and if your line has heavy interchange or overhead traffic
from those lines, you will need to reflect this. The WP and NKP, for example, were late 1940s converts to
7' doors, though both also had many cars with 6' (and with the WP, some 8' doors). The Southern was very
keen on 8' doors beginning around 1950.

Don't forget that there were also a few oddities during our era, like CG 1 1/2 door cars and a few cars
with 9' doors (C&O, 1957).

Kind regards,


Garth G. Groff


"Beckert, Shawn" wrote: