I probably should know this, but I don’t. What is hauled in high side gons (or are they bxcars w/o metal tops) with tarps on top? The ones I see are on the ATN and come down Sand Mtn loaded (I think), maybe from the grain processors in Guntersville AL. I had the mark nos of a couple cars but can’t find it now.
Northtowne
Could be anything from hay (in old woodchip gons) to dry distiller grains (in aluminum coal gons or smilar) to plate glass (in the rare tarped AEX gons). A reporting mark on the cars you saw would help immensely!
Some of those are also “dirty dirt” / slime burrito cars headed to an appropriate landfill site.
I found a mark # for one of the gons I am talking about; it is MWCX 100837, and it appears to be painted GN green. Has high sides and a tarp top. Don’t know what the cargo is.
Northtowne
That’s a series of old woodchip gondolas, so I’ll say that there’s hay under that tarp. The car is too large for transport of dirty dirt, and probably couldn’t be kept clean enough for DDG.
Around here, they like to use old woodchip cars for construction debris.
But you wouldn’t need to cover construction debris with tarps.
They usually use nets, but could use tarps. Don’t want the wind to catch something and lift it up - else you set off high car detectors.
Quite true. If you ever see a big dumpster on a truck, it should have a net or tarp over the load.
I know in Wisconsin it is a law that such loads be covered (I worked in the scrap metal and waste removal business for a while).
What about saw dust? It is light and the cars are large enough to cary quite a bit. The tarps would be used to prevent the sawduat from blowing away during movement.
Could the debris have asbestos, paint chips or other noxious dust?
All good points about covering the construction debris.
Sawdust…if that were transported in an open-top car I’d certainly want it to be covered. If it gets wet, it would absorb enough moisture to cause serious overloading problems.
But heavy construction debris–including steel beams, concrete, etc.–would probably hasten the demise of most woodchip cars, which weren’t built as ruggedly as coal gons.
The “garbage trains” out of NY area on NYS&W and CSX all get a netting or other covering. The stuff is small and will fly out at virtually any speed. Saves having to put up with complainers and cleaning up and paying for damages.