D — H
Deck Carline. (See Carline.)
Drop-door. A door at the bottom of a drop-bottom or hopper-bottom car that will allow the car to discharge its entire load speedily when opened.
Duckbill platform roof. (below) (also duck bill or duck billed) Monitor roof reminiscent of a duck’s bill; e.g., with a double curve, first downward, then outward. The clerestory tapers into the platform roof well before the roof apron, and the two flatten out together. This was the first “streamlining” of the original flat-ended clerestory, and went out of style by the mid 1870s, generally being replaced by the broken duckbill (below).
Emergency Brake (Creamer’s). (Has its own page.)
End platform. (below) A floor at the end and on the outside of a passenger car supported by projecting timbers fastened below the car body (except in the case of the Miller platform), intended to facilitate the entrance and exit of passengers to and from the car.
Flat car. A car that is essentially a platform without side or top enclosure. In the old days sometimes called a “platform car.” Generally, stake pockets are mounted on its sides so that stakes can be used to keep the load from falling off. When sides are added, a flat car becomes a gondola car.
Gondola Car. A flat car with low sides, either fixed in place, or hinged so they car be let down, and in some cases removable. Hopper bottom gondola cars are frequently used for ease of unloading bulk commodities such as coal or gravel.
Hooded platform roof. (below) A duckbill roof where the clerestory tapers into the platform roof well before the roof apron, and the two flatten out together at a relatively vertical angle. This look is created by a sheet metal structure added to the end of the car body (as was the end platform itself prior to the Miller Platform. Generally an iron rod was formed to run from one side of the car body to the other, forming the bottom edge of the hood. Several rods were then run from that rod up to the upper edge of the car body roof to support the contoured sheet metal covering. In describing the Bowers & Dure cars of the Denver South Park & Pacific, writer Ken Martin once called this a “weird” duckbill. It appears to have been popular with the three Wilmington, Deleware, car-builders Bowers-Dure, Harlan & Hollingsworth and Jackson & Sharp between 1865 and 1875. It is quite noticeable in the Billmeyer & Small catalog drawings at our Billmeyer & Small Gallery page.