PS-1 8' 7-Panel Superior Doors???

Bob

Anyone know the part number for some Lionel 8' 7-Panel Superior Doors, for a PS-1?

Does anyone make 8' 7-Panel Superior doors for sale?

Are you asking for a part number for a non-existent part?

I don't know of a single reference that lists the Lionel PS-1 box cars with enough detail to specify which cars were made with which door width or door style.  Of the cars currently on the bay with Superior doors the 6 foot wide doors look to have 7 panels and the 8 foot wide doors have 6 panels.  Youngstown doors seem to be most common in either width. 

While I do not know for sure I doubt Lionel has made more than 4 door tools for the PS-1 box cars. If they make a 5th and 6th tool I would imagine they would decide to make 6 and 8 foot wide Pullman style doors like Atlas, MTH and Weaver.

If you are really set on having a Seaboard PS-1 with 8 foot wide 7 panel superior doors I would suggest a trip to the Evergreen rack at your LHS.  A Superior door lends itself well to construction in that fashion.  Get a set of Camel door hardware from Chooch and you could make your 7 panel door.

Believe it or not, of the 4 PS-1 40' boxcars I have (1 Lionel, 1 MTH, 2 Weaver) NONE of them are as per the prototypes.

Why would that be hard to believe?  Of the recently shipped Atlas 50 foot PS-1s the CB&Q and SP&S cars have the wrong style doors.  Of course they have the wrong style roof and ends as well.  They weren't built by Pullman but that didn't deter Atlas from using their PS-1 molds.  They are the closest they have to a generic 50 foot post WWII box car.  The level of detail in nice even if not quite accurate and the decoration is very well executed.  They seem to sell well in popular road names and paint schemes. 

Like Atlas, Lionel is doing the best they can with what they have.

They seem to sell well in popular road names and paint schemes.

That's because folks (like me) don't or didn't know what they're buying most of the time.  All we see is the pretty eye candy without the first thought of "Is it right?".  And that's a real shame, because having it "right" would make the model even nicer.

Of those 4 PS-1 40 foot boxcars I want to fix, 1 (Lionel) has the 8' 6-Panel Superior door, 2 (1 MTH, 1 Weaver) have doors that look like 6-Panel doors, but they have these exaggerated  bumps in the panels that make them look like something out of Star Wars.  The 4th car (Weaver) has 8' Youngstown doors.

With these 4 cars, none of the combinations of doors, paint schemes, and lettering schemes are accurate.  The only thing wrong on the Lionel car is the doors, if there were 7-Panel doors available all I'd have to do is paint and swap them.  As it stands now I'll have to strip, re-paint and re-letter.

I could then take the Lionel doors and swap them onto one of the other cars, then I'd have to strip the paint, re-paint, and re-letter the whole car.

The Weaver car with the Youngstown doors is painted in REA green.  I will need to strip/paint/decal it to make it right.

The last car will have to be striped, re-painted, and re-lettered.  I have a pair of Youngstown doors (left over from another project) that I can adapt to use.

That's a lot of work to make 4 cars close to "right".  One problem is decals.  Getting them made is pricey if I can't find them already produced.

I researched all the different PS-1 schemes Seaboard had yesterday and it's a nightmare to say the least.  I managed to find 20 or so photos of these cars and there has to be 6 different paint/lettering schemes in addition to at least 3 types of doors.  Decals exist for only a couple of them.

I have 2 photos of 1 car showing at some point they swapped a 7-Panel door for the 6-Panel door.  I know the 6-Panel door photo was taken in 1989 because I took it, the caption on the other photo says 1985.  These dates are long after the SAL-ACL merger, so even though I have photographic evidence of a car with the 6-Panel door I know it's not right (for the timeframe).

Bottom line is we need some 8', 7-Panel, Superior doors.

I researched what I could from Lionel and all of the cars I found had the 6', 7-Panel doors.

Guess it's time to make a few like I need.  That still leaves a lot of striping, painting, and decaling, something that's starting to make me feel like giving this hobby a rest.

Well, I've made 4 7-panel Superior doors to replace the 6-panel doors on 2 of my PS-1 boxcars.

The 1st is one from MTH:

SAL's PS-1 cars didn't have black roof or ends, nor the "Silver Meteor" on this class of cars.  I still need to get the door hardware, but what I have is almost as good as what was on the store-bought model.  Needs stripping, painting, lettering.

Next up is a Weaver PS-1, the one that started all this:

Wrong era for my RR, so I made the doors, needs stripping, painting, and lettering.

3rd is another Weaver car:

Seaboard's REA cars were not PS-1 cars.  The Youngstown door is correct for the model I'm doing.  Stripping, painting, and lettering needed.

Last is my Lionel car:

This is the closest to being correct of the 4 I have, but the 6-panel doors are wrong for this particular car.  As a result, I'll strip, paint, and letter for another in the series.

I've gone back to Jerry Glow for all my decal needs.  As it turns out, he was working on decals for cars with "Route Of The Silver Comet" in HO anyway, so all he had to do was scale them up for O scale.  He's also doing going to do some "Route Of The Silver Star" in different colors as well as one with SEABOARD in Railroad Roman lettering, based on photos of cars I sent him:

(the "S" doesn't belong on "COMETs")

I asked him to make 5 different sets, just in case I feel froggy and get another PS-1

Forgot to mention...I had to make doors for each manufacturer's brand of PS-1.  The door track guides are different on each one and so is the gap between the guide and the car body.

That's the problems scratch builders run into I guess.

The Lionel car is very accurate.  I would still have to make new doors, just didn't feel like it this weekend.  Once I get the decals I may change my mind and keep the Lionel car as is, just replace/paint new doors.

Dave,

I might do that.  I'll check my stash of molding rubber and resin to see if I need to buy more.

The problem(?) would be I'd have to make masters for each brand of PS-1.

The 7-panel door I made for the MTH car is physically the same dimensions (H/W/thickness) as those on the Weaver car, but for the MTH car I had to adjust the stringers (the 2 square pieces at the top and bottom just outside of the guide tracks) because the MTH car is maybe 1/16" shorter between them (stringers).

For the Lionel car I know the thickness will be only 1/2 of what the Weaver and MTH could take.  Of course I could make the back plate thick then let the buyer sand it down to fit.

I suppose I could start with 1 and go from there.  I wonder which brand of PS-1 is more prevalent?  Also, do manufacturers have more than 1 type (did they change designs after a run)?

Once I get some door hardware I'll check into it.

Of the 3 (Lionel, MTH, Weaver) you picked the right one, best detail of the 3.  Does Atlas make a PS-1 40-footer?

I haven't made doors yet for mine, but I will and I'll get in touch with you when I do.  Probably next week when I get around to making some.

I have one of the Trainman ACF 40-foot boxcars.  I also used one in my latest project (hopefully it'll be in the ACL/SAL Lines South or in the S-CL Modeler online mag soon).

The Trainman ACF car has 5-4 ends (I think that's what they're called) and diagonal roof panels.

All of these cars can be further upgraded by removing the cast-on grabs and replacing them with wire.

Of those 4 PS-1 40 foot boxcars I want to fix, 1 (Lionel) has the 8' 6-Panel Superior door, 2 (1 MTH, 1 Weaver) have doors that look like 6-Panel doors, but they have these exaggerated  bumps in the panels that make them look like something out of Star Wars.

Bob

Those "exaggerated bumps" make the doors look like something out of the Pullman-Standard factory.  Pullman made their own doors in that style.  Railroads could specify other commercially made doors and Pullman would deliver cars to the railroads specs.

The Trainman ACF car has 5-4 ends (I think that's what they're called) and diagonal roof panels.

Take a look.

Those are R+3/4 improved dreadnaught ends.

The Atlas TM car could use some detail improvement but it is the only mass produced O scale model of a 40 foot box car built in the post WWII period other than the PS-1.  Many manufacturers and railroad car shops built box cars with this type of roof and end.  For those of us who model the 50s, 60s and 70s these should be the most common type of 40 foot box car on our layouts.

Thanks Ted!  I figured I got the nomenclature wrong for the ends (I didn't check before I wrote ).

I've been removing all the detailed parts from the MTH and Weaver PS-1 cars, in order to strip and re-paint.  The Weaver cars have more separate pieces than the MTH cars (the brake detail on the "B" end is molded on the MTH car, separate on the Weaver car).  Both have molded on grabs, the Weaver car has separate placards on the ends, MTH is molded.

I haven't done anything to the Lionel car yet, I don't want 4 cars sitting around taken apart.  Hopefully the decals will be here next week.

Dave,

I just let him know the check was in the mail and he said he has to go out of town due to a family illness.  His printer's out until next week anyway and I think Jerry waits until he gets them back from the printer before he posts them on his site.  It might be 2 weeks before I get them.

From the artwork he sent me the 5 different styles look great and are CORRECT

It's nice to have some "Through The Heart Of the South" Heralds that say RAILROAD instead of RAILWAY.

I'm soaking the MTH car in Easy-Off as we type.