I think just a few years later, the place that I work for, P&H Mining
Equipment, made regular use of the same class of cars. They certainly were
recognizable as the same battleship gons,
We would fill it up over several days with metal chips and turning
scraps from the machine shop. Then it would travel from the 4300 block of
West National Avenue to about 1500 East where the big pig-iron and scrap
yard was on Jones Island. That was on the south end of the same general yard
used by the B&O RR car ferry dock at the north end of the yards.
These cars were used for many years like that. They looked to be in
much better condition than the one in the link.
And yet….. they would be filled to over-flowing before they were were
finally collected and moved to the steel scrap collection site.
One day I was sight-seeing on Jones Island on the weekend and I got to
see what was the end of one of the loaded cars.
It almost made it all the way into the scrap collection company……
Almost …..
When I saw it, it was several hundred feet away from that place with
the middle of the car bent down and resting on the rails. The car had broken
its back with the steel scrap load piled about the middle outside of the
car, where it had sort of flowed out of the now ‘V’ shaped and bowed out car
sides.
I had a camera with me and took some pictures, not that I know where
those are today.
It was different to see and considering that I had read somewhere that
the battleship gons were built to haul coal, I instantly understood how the
repeated loads of much heavier steel chips finally did it in.
Best to ya,
Mike Bauers
Milwaukee, Wi
On Jun 18, 2016, at 9:30 PM, thecitrusbelt wrote:
Photo
Caption: " Caption: “This car used by Northwestern Steel & Wire to
haul scrap around their sprawling mill complex started life on the
Virginian Railway. Nicknamed "battleship gons” Virginian had over 2000 of
these cars that rode on six-wheeled trucks. This was taken sometime in
1980.“
Photo
by John Leopard
