Bumper seal for auto rack car

摘要

In a railroad auto rack car having an array of side panels with horizontal air gaps between vertically adjacent panels, a strip of continuous flexible resilient plastic material, preferably vinyl having a white color, is fitted onto and adhesively secured to horizontal flanges of vertically adjacent upper and lower side panels to function both as a seal to close the horizontal air gap against swirling road dirt and also as a protective bumper to protect the automobiles from damage from being bumped during loading and unloading of the rack car. The bumper seal in preferred form has upper and lower legs each having a channel which faces the center axis of the bumper for receiving the vertical flanges found along the horizontal edges of the side panels of the rack car. The portion of the bumper seal along the center axis is designed to provide a spring action to accommodate for variations in the width of the air gaps.