Its come to light today thanks to the great Hol Wagner, Car 57's own historian that in march 1897 Car 57 then running as UPD&G 371 had Woods patent platform gates for a while, installed at a cost of $10.75 per gate, the experiment wasnt a success. Does anyone have details on what these looked like and how they were fitted ? They dont show up in the Car dictionaries for 1883 or 1900.
I ask this partly because we have some curious fillets embedded to the corner posts and i wonder if they are anything to do with this.
We also have more paperwork for intermediate overhauls for 1897 and 1898, this gives us records from 1897 thru 1926 not bad for one car amongst hundreds.

Mike Pannell

The issue of Woods patent platform gates came up on this forum some time ago, to supply them for a car in New Zealand. What we found out is that the California State Railroad Museum has a copy of the patent or the patent application; at the IRM Pullman Library we have engineering drawings for the Maine Central Railroad giving specific dimensions, hence proportions for use; and the Straburg Railroad periodically rebuilds or builds new gates for their Boston and Maine cars and thus have patterns. Any of us can assist in providing information to see if the projections on the car match, and taken together would give sufficient information to build your own. That is precisely what happened on the New Zealand car. This should help in your researches. Contact us off list, Mike, and we will be happy to tell you what we have and how it might help. The Woods platform gate is a neat device that folds flat against the car body, yet swings out sturdily and locks in place to prevent anyone from venturing down those steps of an open platform car when it is in motion.
Ted Anderson, IRM Pullman Library

See this url for a listing of an archive copy of a promotional pamphlet about the Wood patent safety gate for passenger car platforms:
http://archive.org/details/cihm_60789

In the box on the left side of the page click on "PDF" and you can view the document.

No idea if this is the actual gate - but - Google patents is a great source:

www.google.com/patents/US411974

Bob

The style of gates in the flyer for which Brian Norden provided a link are still in service on the East Broad Top Railroad, on cars 14, 15, and (I think) 8. A nifty design, though it takes some head scratching to imagine the movement if you don't have one in front of you.

Here are #15's gates in both positions: