Minnesota ore cars

Model Railroader Prototype information for the modeler
1

I have a simple question. How much did a Minnesota ore car weigh and how much would it have as a maximum load.

These are the ones that I’m interested in:

http://www.walthers.com/exec/productinfo/932-4472

Magnus

2

http://www.missabe.com/orecar.html

Reading on that page, serial no 30603 would be a U28 class ore car (Serial nos 30500-30999), built in 1949 by GATX, stencil weight 44100 lbs (about 20 tons), capacity 154000 lbs - about 70 tons.

Smile,
Stein

3

Thanks for the info and the link. I apreciate it.

Magnus

4

Yes, they’re generally referred to as “70 ton ore cars”. Of course, how much of a load they would carry would depend on what they were carrying. Raw iron ore is heavier than processed taconite pellets, plus iron ore is sticky so can be loaded up over the top of the car, whereas taconite pellets can only go up to the top or they start to spill out. Those issues caused many railroads to add the extensions to the top of their ore cars when taconite became more common than raw ore.