QUOTE: Originally posted by Overmod OK, this has been a hoot, but nobody seems to have figured out the situation. I thought I knew the answer right away, but additional confirmation came from a later post that noted what was being loaded into these cars. If a boxcar is loaded full of a commodity that will swell if it gets wet, and then gets a roof leak, the commodity will expand. Transverse loading like this will rapidly bulge out, and eventually break, flat surfaces... both roof and side... on boxcars. (There were some very good pictures of this in Trains many years ago... for some reason I remember 1971 as the year). Bulges in the roof only would imply that the car was full of something that swelled fairly quickly in response to a leak in the roof material or seams... but that kept water away from material 'lower down' in the car once it had done so. Also that the material lower down was fairly dense in compression. Scrap paper, especially if 'bundled' using one of the presses commonly in use, would be a prime candidate for this kind of problem imho.
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"We have met the enemy and he is us." Pogo Possum "We have met the anemone... and he is Russ." Bucky Katt "Prediction is very difficult, especially if it's about the future." Niels Bohr, Nobel laureate in physics
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