What time era’s where drop bottom gondolas used in?
What’s a drop-end gondola, or is there even such a thing?
When did covered gondolas become popular?
A possibly industry to model is a paper company, which of course has the possibility of shipping out scrap paper by rail. Box cars seem illogical because of the all the unused space and even though it’s junk paper, the open-element gondola seems illogical too. But then again the scrap dumpsters are just large commercial dumpsters left outself, to bear the full grunt of wind, snow, ice, sleet, hail, and rain.
Santa Fe started using Caswell drop-bottom gondolas about 1900. Their last class of drop bottom gons I could find was built new in 1957 and they probably lasted quite some time after that.
A drop-end gondola is one on which the ends can fold down so a load can extend beyond the end of the car, such as the end of a some really long pilings or utility poles. An “idler” flat car would often be used to accomodate the overhang.
And lest I start a new question, an idler flat car is not a special kind of a flat car. It is just any suitable flat car operated empty as a “spacer”. Here for instance is an idler flat car operating in between two heavy duty flatcars which are bearing the weight of a looooooooooooooooooooooong oversize load.
Covered gondolas? I don’t know when they were “popular” but I have a July 1970 Southern Pacific specification sheet for shippers which shows around 300 covered gondolas available for revenue service.
Scrap paper? I think I shot a photo ca 1970 but I don’t remember where it is or the date for sure. Back in the 70s and 80s, a drove hundreds of times past a scrap paper company in Corpus Christi, Texas. It shipped bundled scrap paper bgy boxcar.
Made 1850’s to 1950’s although drop bottom gons are still out there.
Drop end gondolas have the ends hinged so they fold into the car. That allows long loads to be put in the car.
Covered gons mostly in the 1950’s.
The scrap paper would be moved in boxcars. Its compressed into large bales and moved with a forklift. I doubt it would be move in a covered gon because they don’t have enough cubic volume to make it useful and paper mills normally don’t have overhead cranes on their loading dock that can pick up the covers. All the scrap paper I have ever seen moved was in boxcars or TOFC.
I know drop-bottom gondolas were preferred by many smaller coal dealers from maybe the 1920’s to 1950’s for receiving shipments of coal in, because the doors were “hinged” in the middle of the car so the doors opened in such a way that the coal spilled out to the sides of the cars where they could then be moved by shovel, conveyor, or other means. A hopper car dropped the coad straight down onto the tracks. (Many small coal dealers didn’t have a coal trestle where coal was dumped down to a lower level for loading.)
I used to see drop-end gondolas once in a while on cars going on the MN&S to LeJeune Steel in south Minneapolis, for things like I-beams that were a little longer than the gondola. Once 65’ “mill gondolas” came along I don’t think the drop ends had to be used very often.
Covered hoppers? Covered hoppers became ubiquitous since the 1960s (and existed decades earlier.) Didn’t you mean gondolas with covers? I agree pickle cars and covered gondolas were rare, although a pickle car is a type of tank car.
Covered gondolas are common around steel mills or steel receiving customers. They’re used to transport high quality sheet steel, steel plate or steel coils.
Other gondolas can sometimes be fitted with a removeable fiberglass cover to protect loads from the weather; there are several examples of industries shipping concentrated ores in covered gondolas.
BethGon, invented by the Bethlehem Steel Freight Car Division, drafted locally in Johnstown at Bethlehem’s Car Engineering, is still going strong as an aluminum railcar, with a modern target-market for coal transportation: BethGon II has a 244,000 pound max-payload, and is now made by FreightCar America.
BethGons have a number of patents, and BethGon II seems to concentrate on a lower center of gravity design which would make it competitive with the higher coal hopper cars with lower long-term maintenance costs.
Curious about these fiberglas covered Gondolas. Recently on a trip up North I saw quite a few of them in CN. They were at a siding in Chibougamau , Quebec, on the CN Cran Sub.I couldn’t see what the load was and by the type of siding where they were located still couldn’t figure out what the industry was. It was a weekend so no one was working there. My question. I can see how they can load these, probably a front end loader,but how do they unload them? If it is concentrated ore, which is possible at that location as they do some mining, how do they unload them? Do they tip the car? Magnets? It seems illogical to fill these with that kind of load. But then, I’m not an expert. Also I can’t find any good photos of these cars as I may try to model one of these but need to see a good photo of the fiberglass top. Of course while I was up there I didn’t bother to take a photo but now I wish I had.
