I needed a definition of a composite gondola but the page of glossary terms in my favorites will not come up.
Where did it go?
What is a composite gondola?
A composite gondola was a gondola (open top tub car, usually no doors in the floor like a hopper would have), with a steel frame (and steel ends, and steel side trusses) and sides made of wood - hence a ‘composite’ of wood & metal.
Actually having doors in the floor was quite common for gondolas. In the l870-1910 era one of the most common coal hauling cars was a hopper bottom gon that had a flat floor with one to four hoppers built into the floor. Those fellout of favor in the east, but drop bottom cars continued to be used. The western roads preferred drop bottom gondolas for coal hauling while the eastern roads preferred hoppers. The ATSF had thousands of Caswell gons (Westerfiled kit) and the UP, SP, DRGW, WP had thousands of GS gons. Many of the 40 foot gons had some drop bottom doors in the floor (such as B&O and C&O gons). Most of the 50+ ft gons had solid bottoms since they were designed for the mill trade, not coal hauling.
Any composite car has a structure made of both wood and metal. Typically the underframe and superstructure farming was steel and the rest of the structure was wood. Wood decking and linings were not counted normally. So a “steel” flatcar, boxcar or gondola could have a wood deck and rest of the car steel.