Has anyone converted a boxcar with fixed doors to doors that open?  I unknowingly bought online a boxcar with fixed doors.  It is an Athearn with couplers mounted on the body & steel wheels, but not being able to open the doors for cargo bothers me.

Yampa Bob,

  I tried last night & tonight to send a personal message, but after I type the code letters before & after my message & click Send, my message is back with new code letters. 

 Thanks for the the link & the additional information about coupler variables.  We should soon have enough to make a book.  This week, I should receive the couplers I ordered & can replace the wires.   

 After this week, when my Intermountain F7B DCC with sound unit arrives, I should be spending less, now that I have my basic layout, a freight train & a passenger train.  Sometime, I'd like to add sound to my Spectrum EMD SD-45  with DCC.  It is powerful, pulling all 16 of my freight cars with ease. The F7A can use some help pulling its 8 passenger cars, so I hope that the F7B will make a difference.
  Then I can help others spend their money, too. 

 "It pays to shop around."  That's part of the fun of collecting.  I check the manufacturer's suggested retail price, the price on modeltrainstuff, & etc.  E-Z Command lists at $120; modeltrainstuff charges $80 on sale; I got it "like new" on eBay for $40.  I bought my Spectrum EMD SD-45 DCC NIB on eBay for $45; Bachmann's price is $115.
  Web stores often don't describe their model train products in much detail--even expensive items.  The Intermountain F7A with DCC & sound I bought had no other specifications, not even in the box.  I bought an Athearn GN boxcar from modeltrainstuff & was disappointed to find that the doors don't open.  The description said "Johnstown doors," but I don't know what that means.
  Items turn up on eBay that one can't find elsewhere.

 I wouldn't be spending this much on model trains if I hadn't inherited my dad's estate.  People who lived through the Great Depression learned to save their money when times improved.

 Wikipedia has a very informative article with pictures:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twentieth_Century_Limited

Yampa Bob,
  What you say suggests that people in the Southwest are bucking the trend of moving back to towns & cities to save gas.  I guess the cheaper housing offsets the cost of commuting.

 I borrowed a History of the Great Northern Railway from the library & see pictures mostly of more than one powered unit in the 20th century trains.
  I just ordered the F7B unit from Intermountain that is made for the F7A I have.  So much for spreading out my expenditures gradually over time! 

KCS1,
Thanks for the link.
  Will mounting couplers to the bodies of my 11" passenger cars still enable them to negotiate 18"r or at least 22"r curves, as they do now?

 Thanks for the information.

 You confirmed my guess that F7A-F7B are typical & not F7A alone.

  The horn & hook couplers that came on my IHC passenger cars are all plastic.  They won't stay connected to each other, which is why I want knuckle couplers.  I haven't seen a Kadee metal coupler that is identical in design to the McHenry 52, & I suppose I couldn't just pop a metal coupler into the truck where I popped out the plastic one.

NYCentralgirl,
  Might you be interested in the famed NYC 20th Century Limited, which Walthers is about to produce, circa 1949?

  The other storied train which I haven't seen models of is the Orient Express.  Much of my attraction to trains has been stimulated by films that give train travel an aura of mystery & romance.