Yesterday I saw 2 (former) coal gons filled with scrap steel for the local mill. I see lots of other gons in this service but the use of coal gons is new to me. This must be recycling for coal gons.
dd
DD, this probably doesnt answer your question but, I think I know where those things came from. I work not far from a local scrapyard, and I had to go there to scrap some old water heaters recently, and they had 2 or 3 of those coal gons sitting there to be loaded, and then about monday, I saw the UP haul them out of there. So they could possibly be the same ones.
Not all of today’s steel is made by smelting virgin iron ore. A lot of it is recycled. Electric-driven furnaces melt pre-existing steel scraps, and the rust can be skimmed off.
Perhaps the scraps go by rail because rail is good at bulk transportion, especially if time is not a factor. A good ten years or so ago I read an article that discussed this new kind of recycling, but I’m sorry to say I don’t remember the source. It might have been from my favorite non-fiction writer, John McPhee, but I really don’t remember. [:I]
Still, at least it’s a possibility, isn’t it??
al-in-chgo
The mill in N. Utah is an electric furnace scrap mill. (it uses natural gas to reduce the rust to iron.) It consumes about 10 - 20 car loads of scrap a day, plus what is trucked in. So I see scrap gons all the time. I just have not seen coal gons used for scrap service before. Both gons were loaded right up to the top - so I bet they were both overweight as scrap is generally heavier than coal.
RJ - its likely that they are the same cars - at least the timing is right. I didn’t bother to get numbers and I expect that you didn’t either.
dd
David J Joseph (DJJX) in Cincinnati has had herds of these old cars in service for years. Very common when used at consolidation smelters and with unshredded autos. Very common to see in CA loading end and in Pueblo, CO and Norfolk, NE on the receiving end.
Mudchicken, as usual, is right. The Joseph Co. , purchasing large nos. of these cars for scrap, found many to be usable, at least for a short while. They were leased for unprepared and bulky scrap. As more steel cars come off lease in favor of aluminum gons there are many more available. The surprise is that these cars were at a mill and loaded to full volume. this would be a density of 40-45 lbs per cubic foot, far below that of no 2. steel and certainly subject to a severe price cut if not outright rejection. Did you notice when they left if they were still full? Iwould not be surprised if so. such cars have been in scrap service for about 20 years.
most unshredded autos are trucked into this mill - local gossip is about 50 truck loads a day. Rail hauled is generally shredded stuff or heavy melting scrap. It is always interesting to see something different. Good to see that DJJX has a use for old coal gons.
dd
I have seen these former coal gons being loaded with scrap in Eugene, OR.
I suspect that overloading isn’t too much of a concern. Sure the coal gons have higher sides than a conventional gondola; but they are significantly shorter in length.
The height of the sides matters not. It’s the capacity in cubic feet. These cars are usually 4000 cubic feet as opposed to 2500 for the typical gon placed for scrap.
Recycling? Absolutely!
You’ll find very few steel coal gons still being used in that service. They no longer make economic sense in the days of 286K gross rail loads and aluminum gons that weigh significantly less. Aluminum gons today haul about ten percent more by volume, and roughly 20 percent more by weight–and they do it with a lower center of gravity.
Cubic capacity of an old coal gon is roughly 50 percent higher than that of a conventional 52-foot gon (4000 cubic feet, vs. 2743 for the newer low-side gons). Overloading would be a problem if a coal gon were filled with solid cubes of scrap metal–so they usually aren’t. (And no, they aren’t that much shorter in length–maybe about five feet. There are longer gons–65 or 66 feet inside–but those aren’t commonly seen hauling scrap, at least not to their full volume.)
A lot of the coal gons that are used in scrap service–maybe the newer ones, with a few years left in them–have been cut down to make more practical scrap cars that can be filled reasonably full. The added height of the sides can be helpful in preventing shifted loads from spilling out (a constant problem in certain classification yards I’m familiar with).
Other uses for steel coal gons have been for tie transport, coil steel (one series has actually been cut down and had covers put on them), and ballast cars (the Herzog fast-unloading ballast trains are made up with old coal gons outfitted with slope sheets and discharge gates).
Actually I do see a fair number of the longer gons loaded with scrap. Mostly mixed loose material; with some loads having a significant percentage of wheels (ie car and truck wheels without tires.) I’ve also seen loads of baled sheet metal; though I suspect these were aluminum. (All shiny metal in the bales.)
I’ve also seen old coal gons in a train hauling new wood railroad ties.
You kidding? I write down all the cars I see in a notebook! Yeah, thats right, a notebook…
Ok maybe not. LOL!