Which frieght cars get the most abuse? My vote would have to be gondolas; I’ve never seen one that doesn’t look like it went through the war.
The gondolas that come through town on the Dakota & Iowa Railroad are the roughest looking I’ve seen. Sometimes, they’re loaded with rocks the size of your desk, and dents in the side to match. I think when old gondolas retire, they’re put into scrap metal service.[xx(]
I agree with MS, Gondolas seem to get the worst abuse.
Then again, what do you mean by abuse? Covered hoppers and boxcars seem to get the most abuse from grafitii vandals…er…um artists.
I like those covered hoppers that have a stenciled message to not beat on the outside with a hammer because it will damage the interior lining. And you can see where someone has gone down one side and then the other leaving a string of 1"-deep dents with a big hammer. I assume they hammer them to dislodge grain and could not care less about damaging the interior of the railroad’s car.
Air Dumps followed by gons followed by ballast hoppers followed by flatcar decks
l say gons. l’ve seen gons with their paint burnt off by glowing hot metal loads, bashed with dents and holes with the number written in chalk, wiggling (hunting) violently in consist with manifest trains on the maim line.
What’s worse then that ?
Quote: Whats worse than that?
Cars that were in the Godzilla movie, now thats abuse.
I agree on the gondola thing. I have seen some pretty forlorn looking gondolas come through here. I would have to add that box cars seem to have it rough too.
Mill gondolas probably get the worst battering, especially those that are in scrap service. Consider that scrap cubes are usually lifted by electromagnets on cranes and are dropped into the car when the current is turned off.
those poor gondolas
I agree that gondolas get the worst treatment. But after a summer of loading boxcars back in my college years, I know first hand that they get beaten up pretty badly, too. It’s just hard to see the damage from the outside. DF bars and other restraints are not stowed properly and beat themselves to death when the car is empty. The doors and door tracks get bent–that’s why they admonish you not to open them with a fork lift. After a while the car ends are no longer vertical so you have to compensate by building a false end out of timbers. That is not a lot of fun when it is 85 degrees outside and 99% humidity.
The last user never seems to completely clean out the cars so you spend half-an-hour or more clearing out their dunnage. And some cargos smell horrid. We used to get cars that we were supposed to load with appliances. The cars would often have a puddle of some kind of putrid black goo all over the floor.
You can complain to the railroad about it, but then it takes another day to get a clean car so you do the best you can to get the stuff out the door and onto the daily billing report.
John Timm
Godzilla was a train buff, he was just playing.
Hands down… gondolas.
Do gondolas have the shortest lifespan as well? Or just the toughest service? On average, how may miles can a railcar operate, before it’s too far gone?
Amazingly enough, I see a lot of gondolas roaming around that are 30+ years old. I have to think that many of the ex-Conrail gondolas on NS and CSX are 40+. As long as they remain in captive service on the home road they are okay to operate.
John Timm
Gondolas may show the beatings better, but hoppers of coal and any other heavy loads take it too, but may be built to stand up to the loadings better.
How about slag cars used at steel mills? Their cargo could melt ordinary gons.
I’d have to go along with gondolas (more specifically, the run-of-the-mill 52-footers) get the worst abuse of any revenue freight cars. It’s probably loads of scrap steel that do the most damage–you’ll note that former steel coal gons take on years of age in a few months when they start getting used in scrap service.
But MC mentions air dump cars, and those get nothing but abuse, with everything from fine dirt to riprap being dropped therein. They don’t even get a break to haul things like finished steel products. Besides that, they have a bunch of moving parts not found on ordinary gons, and those things aren’t exempt from the beatings the sides and floors take. I’ve seen fairly often the air-dump cars being given a power assist by a Speed Swing or other front-end loader when the air-dumping mechanism just can’t do the trick.
Mass Coastal trash cars look like they have been abused a lot. They are only a few months old and look like they are fifty years old. It doesnt look like they will last.
Pete