Opening Doors in a Reefer Car?

[ole]

Has anyone attemped to open the doors on one of their Bachmann reefer cars? With the opening hatches, it would be nice to have the doors open too. I have seen an O scale reefer with opening roof hatches and doors, but I think it was an Atlas. If you have accomplished this feat, what was your source of hinges and latches? Lee

[Rail Rat]

If you mean the roof hatches ... yes, I have.  They look quite nice open!
Just angle the latch pin up & out of the way by tilting it back a little, lift the hatch (side that's toward the end of the car) with your finger nail (some are a little snug) and then bring the latch pin back down to act as a prop to hold the hatch open.  Bachmann has a few photos of the open hatches in their gallery  and I think I have one on my web sites.  Good Luck!
Rick Miller of the Cross River & Midway Model Railroad and the KWE Junction Model Railroad in North Veresailles, PA  http://miller66.gotfamiliesonline.com/
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/On30rgp/

[David(UK)]

Nope, I read that as opening side doors to go with the roof hatches.

Lee, I looked at doing that on the first reefer I got - that damned plastic stuff bachmann use was so hard I now have a new reefer to play with!

[ole]

Yes, I am talking about the side doors. If you want to talk about thick plastic, try cutting out the plug door of a vintage American Flyer reefer car. I used an Exacto saw and it still took forever. And the door material was so thick, I had to block sand the back with a real course grit to reduce the depth of the door.
I vagely recall that plastic model car builders (1:24) had a method of using thread/fishing line to saw out doors, trunk lids and hoods; today there is some tool called an auto-cutter or whatever. Does anyone know how to do the manual saw method? Lee

[amdaylight]

Ole,

With the full size cars the only time the doors would be left open is with the loading unloading phase of the freight shipment. Do to the fact that they swung open rather than slid open like a box car the doors would usually strike something or someone and be either ripped off the car or severely injure or kill some one or both. One of the things that a brakeman would do when he walked the train just before the start of a run was to check the doors of the reefers in the train to insure that they securely closed and locked both to insure that the food inside was secure and if the car was empty so that no one got injured or nothing was damaged. If the door was not able to be secured then the car did not go. If he found a car with a load open then he had to notify the authorities and the railroad that a theft might have taken place. The ice hatches on the other hand could be left open in shipping to provide ventilation through the car or to force cooling of the load. In most cars there was no way to get from the ice tanks into the load carrying part of the car, the ice was either in big galvanized steel cages or behind bulkheads or both in a car to keep the ice from coming in direct contact with the load. The only time that you could use a car with the doors open is in a static situation where you are modeling the actual loading or unloading of freight and that car was carrying. An interesting scene could be done in a small town where the car has been set out on a siding and they are unloading the car.

Andre Anderson 

[glennk28]

I am not a fan of operating features--and I am a "Master Builder of Locos and Cars" according to NMRA. --reason is that anything that operates WILL get played with. If it is played with often enough, it WILL get broken.  If a part is designed as operating, I consider it to be "Positionable".  When in the right position I either solder or glue it in place.  gj