Call it a "spiral" end. It's been discussed before, a little bit. As John Barry
says, Soo Line had some - series 63801 to 64799, 498 even-numbered cars in 1940.
By 1950 there were still 493 cars. By 1955, 224 cars had been rebuilt with steel
floors, but there were still 257 cars as built. In 1959 only 8 original cars were
on the roster, but there were still 469 cars with steel floors! And I know it's
going past 1960, but in 1965 there were still 277 of these strange gondolas!

Kinda makes me wonder, why aren't these considered to be "signature" Soo Line cars?

Tim O'Connor



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Most likely a Monon gon, but it could be a SOO line as they had some too.  The cars can be modeled with the Intermountain USRA gon and a Shapeways end.  We had a good discussion on a number of these in the Barriger collection several months back.
John Barry

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Came across a photo of a freight yard, and one one of the tracks is the end of a gondola I hadn't seen before. I'm sharing it here so that others may see it, and so that some may be able to identify it, with one continuous indentation filling the end, like lines on a vinyl record.
....Mike