I’ve been reading on the types of newer cars used in the transport of coal over the railroad. I seems the term “Hopper” has been replaced with “Gondola” is this an actual change in car construction or merely a change in terminology?
Trinity calls their rotary coal cars gondolas and the bottom discharge cars hoppers.
Hopper cars have bottom discharge gates. Gondolas do not have discharge gates. Most are rotary dumped…
There’s a distinction between a self-clearing car and a non-self-clearing car (although I’ve never been clear on how drop bottom gons do that make them not hoppers).
Because drop bottom gons don’t have “hoppers”:
“a container for a bulk material such as grain, rock, or trash, typically one that tapers downward and is able to discharge its contents at the bottom.”
Gons have flat floors. Or they DID, back when they had the bottom doors. Hence they had no hoppers.
As is obvious, you can use drop bottom gons to carry bulk loads, or linear items like pipe and rail. Which true hopper cars don’t do well at all.
Ed
The essence of the hopper car is the hopper itself - a container with a taper to the bottom. The taper is what helps the loading from the bottom, more so than would just a hole in the bottom for example.
Some gondolas have bottoms that open but they are doors that simply dump the load, and no taper. I have to assume that the mere fact that doors on a gondola bottom swing open does not necessarily mean that the load falls out unaided. More to the point it is not a directed or aimed unloading to a point or points as a hopper would offer. that may be a key definitional difference.
Dave Nelson
Pretty simple. Just Google the names. You will find plenty of images, and descriptions.
Rich
So it’s basically a difference in the bottom of the container.
If a car has hoppers, it’s a hopper car.
Ed
Au contraire. The D&RGW had thousands of drop bottom gondolas. I just purchased some RTR versions in HO from Intermountain - they are defnitely gondolas and have discharge gates on the bottom.
When you see these drop bottom gon’s in trains, they sit significantly higher than standard gondolas to allow for room for the discharge gates to open below the cars. Here is a photo of an SP beet drop bottom gon.
I’m going to have to go with the tapered bottom characteriestic differentiating the hopper from the gondola.
Of course the D&RGW hauled lots of coal and other materials in both gondolas and hoppers. Prior to the 1950’s, most of the D&RGW cars used for coal were drop bottom gondolas. When unit trains began to be popular in the 1960’s, there was a large production of hi-side gondolas used to haul coal and they were rotary dumped.
I’d call that a Hopper-Gondola, wouldn’t you?
Its called a hopper bottom gondola. In the era I model (1900-1905) it was the most common kind of coal car. By 1920 it was surpassed by the hopper car.
Its a gondola because it has a flat floor where the hoppers aren’t . A hopper is "self clearing ", all the interior surfaces are sloped. A drop bottom gon is a gon because the area in the center over the underframe and any portions of the bottom that don’t drop are a flat floor.
Or surpassed on the D&RGW by the drop bottom gondola in their case.
Neither the KCS nor the DRGW cars are fully self-clearing.
An advantage of the KCS car is that it dumps in the same outline as a regular hopper. So it should work well where there’s a receiver between the rails. The DRGW doesn’t do that well, at all.
An advantage of the DRGW is that, when the doors are closed, the floor is fully flat. The KCS car looks like the majority of the “floor” isn’t there. Not too supportive for a load. And, if the receiving industry is set up for outside-the-rails dumping, it (DRGW) unloads nicely.
Ed
Model railroader and Supreme Court Justice, Potter Stewart, said about the hopper gondola controversy, ‘I know it when I see it’. …no …wait…maybe that was something about movies?
Now if someone wanted to model this.
How would one go about modeling it?
Styrene or 3 D printing to scratchbuild, or find a rotary dump coal car with similar design and kitbash it.
What about cutting two of these and splicing?
Are you talking about kitbashing that?
What were you going to make from it?
Also, Hoppers are more W shaped, while gondolas sit lower and have more of a rectangle shape to them.
Sure. It looks promising. There are obvious similarities.
How accurate will the model be? How much work will it take to make it accurate enough for your tastes?
I am impressed with the KCS prototype. It would be a grand model to run!
Ed