Canadian Railroads > Freight Car Friday - Thrall-Door Variations, MN&S, Simpson Lumber

Last Friday I posted three Thrall-Door cars at https://www.trainorders.com/discussion/read.php?15,5677476. Here are three more, at least I think so. My uncertainty will become clear.
1. This is MN&S 2016 in the consist of CP #911 at Smiths Falls, ON. The date is February 26, 1978, and the time 1505. It's clearly identified as a Thrall-Door car, the full length of the car being accessed by four plug doors. Build date is 1-73. I think this train originated in Vermont, so this may account for the lumber content (see third photo as well).
2. MN&S 2041 is sitting in CP's downtown industrial yard in Calgary, on May 22, 1984. I had this pegged as a Thrall-Door car, but after all these years, scanning it to post, I realize that there are only two of the wide plug doors. The space where you'd expect the end doors is occupied by panels with horizontal ribbing, and no evidence of the hardware a plug door needs. However, you can see handles on these panels, which suggests they're 12.5' slide doors, without the option to swing out past the inner doors. I searched the web for two-door Thrall cars, but couldn't find any. I did run across reference to maintenance and cost issues with the plug door hardware, which led some users to rebuild the four-door cars into a more conventional configuration. I don't think this MN&S car is rebuilt, however, based on the third car in this series.
3. Looking the same as MN&S 2041, AMR 5008 is Arcata & Mad River Railroad, in service with Simpson Lumber company. It's marshalled next to MN&S 2016, in train 911. This looks like a Thrall product, but they don't brag about it in the stenciling.
Any information/knowledge about these latter two examples would be welcome.
Fred



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/19/23 17:32 by feclark.

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Great shots, thanks for sharing. I never knew there were so many variations of the all door cars. I wish now that I had taken more freight car photos, but processing Kodachrome wasn't cheap, so motive power was the priority!
Brian N.

Interesting stuff-thanks!

Many of the All-Door cars had the outer doors removed later in life, they were a maintenance burden and not really needed.