On Mar 24, 2005, at 3:26 PM, Beckert, Shawn wrote:

List,

In regards to the low-side 40' gondola that Ted Culotta
will eventually be bringing out:

http://www.speedwitch.com/Models.htm

What exactly did the Southern use these for? It's an
unusual design, and I can only guess that they had a
particular commodity in mind for these cars to haul.
Anybody know more about these gondolas?

Like the low-side gons owned by other y'all railroads (e.g., ACL, SAL), the Southern's cars were intended primarily for limestone service. In the only two photos I have of these cars were the loads are visible, they're carrying crush limestone. However, open-top cars were versatile and the Southern doubtless used their low-side gons for anything and everything that would fit in them and didn't require weather protection.

Richard Hendrickson