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| Re: [PHOTOS] Washington, Baltimore & Annapolis (1468143) | |||
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Re: [PHOTOS] Washington, Baltimore & Annapolis |
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Posted by JOE @ NYCMTS - NYCTMG on Sun Mar 4 12:06:48 2018, in response to Re: [PHOTOS] Washington, Baltimore & Annapolis, posted by Bill Newkirk on Sun Mar 4 09:50:57 2018. Hello Bill (M)Re: the upper windows on those 3 WB&A gate cars, its hard to tell, and of course, I wasn't there in person when these 3 cars were rebuilt (heh)-- or I wouldn't be here now writing to you ! It could be "stained glass" but I doubt stained glass (even then, costly) for then 20 year old used "gate" cars would have been applied. Probably a sort of cheaper frosted class in absence of shades the original center door car windows had. But one thing, the WB&A was cheap and in need of a lot of quickly acquired and cheap equipment for war years traffic -I assume WWI. And after rebuilding only 3 ex-LIRR center door gate-cars that way, decided it was easier and cheaper to keep and seal the center doors on the other cars. And get them on the road quicker. And some years later convert some to work cars. I think I know why the car has 13 windows, having 6 pairs and one odd one at one end. Of course as a scale model designer and maker I can figure it out. I would assume the odd ONE window is located at both sides of the same end of each of the 3 cars rebuilt that way. The original cars as built for the LIRR, were 5 even spaced windows...and a half-window-wide wooden tongue & groove spacer panel, and two "leaf style" sliding doors, and another wide spacer panel and 5 more even spaced windows. The SPACER PANEL was to provide for a door pocket for each of the 2-leaf (split) center doors. If you look closely, you can see the side truss rod anchors (queenposts) are located below, but very slightly towards the car ends, under the inner edge of the (5th) side window on each side of the center door. And IN THE SPACE where the twin leaf doors were removed, along with removal of their spacer panel siding wall for door pockets, there now becomes SPACE for THREE WINDOWS. Just like some Chicago wooden EL Cars -- check the image below -- and NOTE where its center bank of 3 windows are...per its queenposts.  AND BELOW -- The rebuilt WB&A ex-LIRR car BELOW to compare windows  If you look closely at the WB&A car, you can almost tell where the lower sidewall woodwork changes and fill ins were made between the 2 queenposts for the center door opening removal. And the uneven "one pair" and "one-half" pair window arrangement WITHIN that space !!! Note that this Chicago EL car also has 4 even spaced windows, separated by a group of THREE in the center- thus an even and neat configuration. Of course, all the windows are somewhat narrower width to compensate for the wider window posts and larger, and enclosed, end platforms... thus 4 windows on each side of the center of the car "queenposts" instead of wider 5 windows with very narrow window posts per the ex-LIRR Gate cars. It appears the WB&A shops started building new paired windows from one end of the car to the other, as 6 PAIRED window sets, and realized they had a ONE WINDOW space remaining. And they built in the single window. Or "perhaps" they purchased ready made window paired-sets for installation and realized a slight "fitting error"! All likely lost to "shop history" and long forgotten. Had they designed it like the Chicago EL car pictured above, starting with 3 paired window sets from EACH END of the car towards center, and thus 3 windows fitted into the car center between the queenposts, the window symmetry would have been cosmetically even and pleasing. Anyway, enough of carbody history and modeling style & measuring logistics. regards - Joe F |
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