and up until when were the wooden gondolas used, such as the one in this photo.
I think the BLE built the first ones around 1895, they were patterned after the PRR GG wood hopper. PRR started building all steel hoppers around 1898, class GL. The P&R built their first 1000 around 1902, and built a run of wood hoppers after that.
The wood hopper bottom gons lasted into the 1920’s
Wood hoppers/gons with steel underframes lasted some places until WW2
Between the coal hauling gondolas and the twin hopper steel cars, there was a wood sided twin hopper car in extensive use. IIRC, it was a fifty or fity-five ton USRA design for the WWI era. It had stamped steel ribs, but wooden sides. I have pictures of wooden low side gondolas in use for coal into the early 20’s. There were retail coal dealers in this area that were still taking delivery of coal in gondolas through the depression as they did not have sidings on trestles and were still using day labor to hand unload the cars onto the coal yard.
As I recall, these weren’t just the first all steel hoppers but the first all steel cars of any kind.
Actually, no. Composite-sided hoppers are actually NEWER than all-steel hoppers. The idea of using steel structural members in freight cars was patented by C.A. Seley around 1899, and the first cars built with the steel ribs exposed was a small group of GS gondolas built for the N&W (Seley was that road’s master mechanic). The idea of composite GONDOLAS caught on quickly, but not so much for hoppers, since they took a huge beating; wood hopper life spans were about eight years, while steel hoppers were about 20. Besides the relatively large numbers of Seley composite hoppers (again, a C.A. Seley design), the idea of composite hoppers with diagonal braces puttered along indifferently until WWII, when the design was built as a way to save high carbon steel for the war effort. By 1955 most of those cars were rebuilt into all steel cars, although a few hung on with the CB&Q until the BN merger.
Not as unusual as you might think, and the practice of hand unloading coal cars was a daily occurance in this country into the late 1950s. Coal unloading trestles were VERY uncommon, and usually only seen in urban areas where there was a large inventory turnover. Most usually, gons were hand shovelled out into coal storage sheds by day labor. To make the job easier, a hopper would have the doors opened, letting