Mike, Eldon and all,

The info that I have shows the MONON had two designs of composite coke cars. CIL 1019 is a former low side stone gon onto which the composite coke body was lowered and secured. MON 1033 shows a different design like MON 1028 that Mike shared. Same base car, but gon posts have been removed and different coke body lowered into place. I suspect that this later version was actually a composite boxcar body with the roof and doors removed before being lowered onto the former stone gon.

The MONON's Lafayette, IN SHOPS made all kinds of cars from these extremely sturdy 1920's era low side composite gondolas. In addition to the coke cars, there were head end cabooses, general service flat cars, and TOFC flat cars. All sorts of company service cars were constructed including wheel cars, boom cars and even a pile driver.

It is my understanding that the stone gons were constructed by Pullman in on-line Michigan City and hauled without wood components to the Monon's Lafayette Shops where they were completed.

The "do it yourself" nature of the Monon's car shops makes for some interesting modeling projects.

Mont
Your message is ready to be sent with the following file or link attachments:

IMG_5838
IMG_5841


Note: To protect against computer viruses, e-mail programs may prevent sending or receiving certain types of file attachments. Check your e-mail security settings to determine how attachments are handled.