This is a long shot, but here goes. I have 1921 Poor’s Manuel of Railroads. In the data of the Missouri, Kansas, and Texas railroad (Katy), under Freight Cars is listed "Combination Coal and Stock, 1584 (quantity, I assume). Anyone know what kind of car this would have been. I grew up on the Katy main line in McAlester, OK, which was the center of what was a robust coal minning area. I was in school 1940 till HS grad 1953 and coal minning was active then but shipped mostly in gons; don’t remember hoppers but there could have been some. Nothing like the Comb description in the Manuel. Anyone have a clue?
Perhaps they simply combined the count of two types of cars for statistical convenience. Rather than imagining a car that carried coal and livestock together. Possibly the road didn’t own a large number of either. Just a thought.
The ‘Bopper’, 1916 edition, although even more bizarre.
I know back in the day stock-cars were sometimes used to transport grain during peak harvest seasons (apparently requiring lots of cleaning and lots of wood coopering to prevent leaks), but coal? Oh well, why not…
Searching around online, I found enough references to the cars that I’m sure they were a specific type of car, not two types lumped together in ledgers. However, I haven’t found a picture or description so I don’t really know what they would have been like.
My guess is that some railroads 100+ years ago found they needed more stock cars in the summer, and more coal-hauling cars in the winter, so built a car that could be converted from one to the other. I know at that time railroads had wood flatcars that could have wood sides and ends added to convert them into gondolas which could haul coal. Perhaps there were gondola cars that could have side extensions added that allowed the cars to haul stock also. (If the livestock is only travelling a short distance, the car wouldn’t have to have a roof.)
Back in the 1970s an elevator operator in northwest Iowa leased some old surplus stock cars, lined them with plywood sheets and used them to ship grain.
Thank you tree68; this has to be what is listed on Katy car roster in 1921. Gons and stock cars are listed separately from the comb stock and coal cars.