Can anyone help me with these two topics?
I seem to remember the CB&Q used gondolas to haul coal prior to using hoppers. When did the change to hoppers start? Were the gondolas in “Unit” trains as the hoppers are now? Were gondolas and hoppers used simultaneously during a “transition”?
Second topic: Were cattle/stock cars always “Unit” trains? When did they stop using these cars (and stockyards)?
Thanks,
John
Western railroads preferred drop-bottom gondolas to hoppers until approximately 1960. While some western railroads purchased both drop-bottom gondolas and hoppers, most western railroads predominately used drop-bottom gons and some that were major coal carriers such as Rio Grande purchased nothing but drop-bottom gons until the late 1950s. That was because coal was highly seasonal on western railroads, more than three-fourths of the tonnage moving between October and March. In turn that was due to the relative dearth of heavy industry in the West – most of the coal was consumed for domestic heating or railway fuel. The drop-bottom gon was an all-purpose car that could be used with equal utility for coal, sugar beets, metallic ores, sand and gravel, scrap metal, and lumber and pipe. The hopper, by comparison, is virtually a single-commodity car. One can use a hopper designed for coal to carry metallic ores, sand and gravel, sugar beets, and even railroad ties, but variously these commodities are more difficult to load or unload from a hopper as opposed to a gon, the hopper is much more prone to damage caused by the act of loading or unloading, and the hopper’s extra cubic capacity makes it more prone to overloads, which of these defects applies depending upon the commodity.
The rapid expansion of natural gas distribution systems and the conversion of railroads from steam to diesel in the decade following the end of WWII wiped out about half of the coal mining (and rail transportation of coal) in the West. Coal mining and rail transportation of coal did not recover from its mid-1950s nadir until demand for electrical power outstripped the supply available from hydroelectric resources and mine-mouth plants, and began a rapid an unprecedented growth. This demand was principally met in the West by coal-fueled steam generating plants (and to a lesser extent nuclear plants mostly in the Midwest), which in turn made the demand for coal transportation grow at
Looking at the Burlington Bulletin on the southern Illinois coalfields, it looks like gondolas were used in both non unit and “unit” type trains. Maybe not exactly like unit trains now but close, that is not captive service between mines and customers. It looks like both gondolas and hoppers were used in throughout the 30’s. The 40’s, especially after the war saw the expansion of the hoppers and the decline of gondolas in coal service.
Rick
In part it had to do with the customers. In steam days, many of the coal loads went to relatively small coal dealers, getting coal to sell in small quantities to homeowners for their furnaces. These dealers found gondolas that dumped out away from the car to be easier to unload, as they often were just using a small conveyor and/or hand power to unload the cars. Later, the primary coal customer became power plants and other large industries; for them, hopper cars that unloaded between the rails were easier to use, as the coal could just be dumped into troughs below the cars. Eventually, bathtub gondolas were preferred, as many power plants used rotary dumpers to unload cars, so the hopper doors were no longer necessary.
The Northern Pacific Historical Society’s “Mainstreeter” had an article last year on NP coal hauling between Duluth-Superior and the Twin Cities that had some very good info on this.
Precisely. For the same reason boxcars were quite popular for lump coal. The boxcar provided a convenient storage device that could be locked at night to reduce pilferage of the valuable lump coal, which otherwise would disappear to fuel neighboring households, and the boxcar similarly reduced pilferage from open-top cars en route to the customer or awaiting movement in yards. Most large western mines were equipped with one or more boxcar loaders, a Rube Goldberg contraption that extended into the corners of boxcars to deliver the lump coal with minimal drop off the belt, as dropping lump coal causes it to break, and breakage reduces its value toward zero. Colorado and Utah mines in particular had sizeable boxcar trade until the early 1950s. Use of boxcars also helped coal roads balance their car fleet needs.
S. Hadid
Good Afternoon.
Lots of good information here. Livestock cars would be blocked in freights so they could be handled quickly. There were laws on the books (depending on the critter being carries) that required stock to be waterd and/or exercised as specific times. IIRC, hogs had to be watered more frequently than cattle, they also were hosed down to keep cool.
NOTE to 1435: some roads used converted boxars to carry coke as well. Thanks for sharing your knowledge
work safe
WOW !! What a tremendous amount of valuable information in all the replies to my questions.
Thanks to all the for the great information, it is really helpful to me.
John
In the late 1800s and early 1900s UP and D&RGW often used stockcars to haul beehive coke. I don’t know if Western roads had any converted boxcars for coke. The boxcars used to haul coal were plain, ordinary, 40-foot cars.
Stockcars were also used to haul RR ties - the ventilation was needed after the ties had been creosoted, otherwise the fumes could build up.
Thats correct about using stock cars for ties. My uncle was a section man on the NP in the seventies and they were still using them then.
If you can get your hands on the Car and Locomotive Cyclopedias from different decades you may be able to get a feel for when the transition began and ended. Having said that, I saw a brand new mill gondola loaded with coal in the early 1980’s, so the practice continued at least that long.
At one time cattle cars were found in lots of trains, especially locals. My father used to talk about riding in the caboose on the local mixed train when they would ship cattle to Swift & Co. in South St. Paul.
The last regular cattle shipments were to Farmer Johns in Los Angeles. There have been numerous threads on this on various forums. I believe that this was a “unit train” or at least a solid block of cars. This all ended in the 1990’s (?). Someone else will have an exact date, I’m sure.
John Timm