I’ve copied this from the very interesting “unit Coal Train” thread…
"markpierce: Wait just one minute. I thought hopper cars had openings/chutes so they can be self-unloading. An open car requied to be turned upside to unload because it has no chutes doesn’t sound like a hopper car to me. In my mind, such a car is a gondola. Seems to me that just because a type of car carries products typically carried by traditional hopper cars doesn’t make that car a hopper. Someone providing the appropriate ARA car-type code might calm my befuddlement".
"If it has doors to unload in the bottom of the car its a hopper.
Whether or not it can rotary dump has nothing to do with whether its a hopper or a gon, both types of cars can be equipped with rotary couplers".
So, what I’ve been wondering is…
The huge woodchip cars (such as those made by Walthers and LBF?EC Shops) come with bottom doors - okay, so those are hoppers - OR they come with no bottom doors with either no doors at all, presumiably rotary, or end doors for end dumping.
The thing is… they all seem to be called “Woodchip Hoppers” and not “Woodchip Gons”. I’ve noticed this particularly because I want to get more of the type with proper hopper doors in the floor and they are really awkward to identify on EBay. Plus almost all of the models are of the other types.
So, anyway, does this mean that woodchip “cars” are the exception that proves the rule?
Thanks
[8D]
PS Do the rotary woodchip cars have rotary couplingsat one or both ends? I’ve not noticed one end of these cars bein
It is a puzzlement. Lots of things make little sense to me. In this instance, my guess is that all modelers and manufacturers don’t carefully observe official definitions.
By the way, there were gondolas with doors on the floor for unloading. However, they were still considered gondolas and not hoppers because they weren’t totally self-unloading. Someone needed to push the contents over the door openings.
What does the railroad classify them as a hopper or a gon? Railfans might call them “hoppers” but that doesn’t make them hoppers. Technically, as Mark alluded to, a hopper car is a self clearing car.
What do marketing folks know? They aren’t railroad men.
John Armstrong’s The Railroad, What It Is, What It Does, 5th edition (2008) has a section describing major car types. Under coal, it describes bottom-dump hopper or high-side solid-bottom gondolas as coal carriers. The book doesn’t mention wood chips, but I believe the same descriptive principle would apply. This authoritative source is consistent with what I’ve ever learned about railroads: a hopper needs to be self-clearing.
Also, here is an excerpt from Kalmbach’s The Model Railroader’s Guide to Industries Along the Tracks, page 47: “… increased use of rotary dumpers by power plants resulted in increased use of large gondolas (with no bottom discharge doors) for unit-train coal service.” (emphasis added)
Further, here is a quote from Kalmbach’s The Model Railroader’s Guide to Industries Along the Tracks 2, page 56: “Modern wood chips cars are among the largest railcars in operation. These large gondolas, with a topihinged door on one end, came into popular use in the 1960s.” (emphasis added)
In addition, Anthony Thompson’s authoritative multi-volume Southern Pacific Freight Cars is consistent with the above.
Thus, I still hold to my original thesis that people often misuse the term “hopper” when describing a gondola, and that is the source of the confusion.
Mark,Frankly I will go with the real railroaders after all its their job and they know the tools of their trade especially customer service since they recommend and fill the car orders for the customers including new rail customers.
IF I was a new rail customer guess who I will turn to? Not the model railroad book authors because like all “experts” they complicate the simple and overstate the obvious.
What is so hard in understanding what NS and CSX wrote? NS even provided a diagram so their customer would know the car type!
I understand them perfectly. But as I said, they are marketing people. I place more trust with serious students/researchers of railroads.
As I mentioned before, someone show the ARA car-type codes for specific cars to prove us (me, John, Tony, Dave, etc.) wrong. Does anyone have a contemporary car registry? Mine is a 1953 version and is out of date.
Just received the following messages on whether those cars are hoppers or gondolas.
On Oct 26, 2009 1:42 PM, Tony Thompson <thompson@…> wrote:
Mark, I’m not sure about contemporary usage, but traditionally
you are entirely right. The definition of a hopper is a self-clearing
car. But I suppose CSX or anyone could maintain that an inverted or
tilted-end dumping car sure is self clearing. My own view is that,
as you say, such cars are not SELF unloading. Not sure the AAR codes
would help, but I can provide if you want.
Most (if not all) of CSX’s coal gons are AAR Type E100, “Equipped Gondola,
Inside Length: Less than 48ft,” like this one:
I could see calling them “hoppers” from a marketing standpoint since the general
public probably doesn’t understand the distinction, but I’d guess the
maintenance people still call it a gon.
As far as “self clearing” I suppose both are-one is emptied through the bottom and the other gets rotated–kind of a fine line and either would be correct.
There is no such thing as a self unloading car-it will require help.
I figured if I looked long enough I would find the facts according to the prototype.
So,it depends on the type of woodchip car and I knew the picture your friend sent didn’t fit in the grand scheme of things except as a open hopper suited for coal,coke,stone,ores,gravel etc…So,there had to be a correct answer in railroad speak.
A Drop bottom Gon is a Gon with doors in the floor that can be released to drop down… which should result in the load (or most of the load) dropping out. AFAIK they were mostly used for coal traffic and mostly for domestic coal being delivered to local traders and/or team tracks… but I’m sure that I could be proved wrong on this.
The evidence that I do have for cars c1880 - c1910 is that a whole variety of cars were produced for mutiple use. The aim was to minimise non-paying/empty backhaul. The result was a number of “combination car” designs. (This was not the meaning of “combination car” later used when cars were made of a mix of steel frame with wood cladding - particularly during WW2 whenthere was a steel shortage).
Designs fo combination cars that I have copies of drawings for include
gons with drop bottoms as described (the only design that survived a long time),
gons that could be turned into hopper floored cars by shifting floor panels around - but didn’t have hopper shapes built below the frame level.
gons that were hopper bottomed or, more accurately, part hopper bottomed and ,significantly did not have either end slopes or inverted V(s) mid body. (Think of a hopper that has had its inside panels caved out so that it can take loads of lumber or steel beams).
gons with hopper bottoms that have doors inside the car that can be laid down flat to make a complete floor (to load sacks or barrels) or flipped up to make a hopper shaped floor in most or all of the car.
Boxcars! in all but the 3rd floor arrangement above…
with plain roofs and sides.
with small doors in the upper sides and/or hatches in the roof
EEK! [:O] I didn’t mean to get back to a “who knows the correct version” fight like we had in the side rails on tank cars thread. [:I]My conclusion though is that Brakie has it right in his first post here… wait a moment though all you other guys! [:)] Someof you are going to hate this. [:-,]I was really tired when I checked the thread last night so I didn’t get my head round it first off and had to go back to it…Below I have directly copied text from the CSX links that Larry has given and highlightedkey bits."
You would have to check each individual series of car on each individual railroad or owner. Cars intended to be rotary dumped don’t necessarily need rotary couplers. Only cars intended to be unloaded coupled in train need rotary couplers. Cars intended to be unloaded in a single car dumper, uncoupled from the other cars don’t need rotary couplers.
I think what we have here is a failure to communicate and understand railroad speak.
Look again at the BOTTOM DUMP woodchip hopper…Unlike the rotatory dumped hopper the bottom dump can be unloaded the bays along the bottom of the car whereas the rotary woodchip hopper can not be bottom unloaded.Therefore in railroad speak the rotary woodchip hopper is a gon since it can not be unloaded from the bottom.
Both terms can be use freely.
There was some pass railroad speak that was confusing to most modelers because they failed to pass railroad speak 101.So,modelers came up with their own speak which differs from railroad speak and then the “experts” muggled this speak until the 2 speaks is unrecognizable and confusing to most…
No it just proves that people have no idea how to identify what they’re talking about.
It’s really not that complicated, if it has a solid bottom, it’s a gondola. If it has bottom outlets, it’s a hopper. So yes, the big car from Walthers with the bottom doors is a hopper; other types of woodchip cars are gondolas.
The only “exception” is a drop-bottom gondola, which has a flat floor with doors that are hinged at the centre of the car and allow the car’s contents to be unloaded to the sides.
That’s an interesting pic [:)]. Shows that there are still drop bottom gons. Even more interesting this one discharges to the sides as mentioned. At least some of the earlier ones I went on about earlier dropped their load straight down… the hinges were across the car IIRC. More significantly only a few of them achieved such a large area of the floor opening…most of them had a limited or no door space over the trucks… meaning that while most of the load could be dropped straight out they always needed some assistance from shovel pushers to get the whole load out.
I think that I’ve not got across the point that CSX are actually calling the same car by two names in their public literature.
I certainly agree that allsorts of people get into such issues and confuse the matter… but what I suspect has happened in this case is that the original whopping great big cars were hoppers and were commonly known as hoppers. Then when the later, different, cars came along looking much the same and carrying the same load I suspect that people just kept calling them “woodchip hoppers” regardless of the fact that they were gons. This probably happened with RR men, customers and hobbyists. The people who may have got caught out would have been those taking o
So now that the drop bottom gondola debate portion is cleared, what about the OP? His subject little was “emptying woodchip gondolas” yet I don’t recall that even mentioned in his actual post. I don’t recall anyone answering that either. So how were the high-sided woodchip gondolas (the one’s marketing by freight car makers, specially in N scale) unloaded? I don’t know what I would use them for but I would like to have some. They would go right along with the drop-bottom gondola’s, no real use for them lol.
PS. I also just thought of an interesting kitbash. One person mentioned he either thought or knew of some drop-bottom gondola’s where the floor hinges ran across the width of the car, not the length. I forget who but someone makes a drop-bottom gon in N with the door lowering/raising mechanism on the outside. One could buy one of these and kitbash it so the door mechanisms ran across the the width of the car, on top of the gon, and use it as a ballast car. Maybe add some sort of detail to the bottom that looked like chutes or smaller doors so it seems the ballast is controled to flow between the rails and not just every where. Some thing to think about, and yes I know about the Difco side-dump ballast cars, but I think my idea would look just as cool.
Once more with feeling. If its a gondola then you turn the car over in a rotary dumper or if it has an end door you can lift the car and dump it out that end.
I’m amazed at how difficult people are making this. If you have holes in the bottom of the car you can unload it through the holes. If there aren’t holes in the bottom then you have to unload it through the top. I guess somebody could unload it with a clamshell or bucket unloader from the top, they do that with gravel on lower side gons and junk gons, but I’ve never seen it with wood chips.
markpierce:
