Gatwood, Elden J SAD wrote:

Group;
It would be interesting to examine fleet development in individual railroads
based on their histories with coal and coke movement (in particular) and the
particulars of that resource. Given that the PRR had extensive connection
with the bituminous trade, and with so much of that going to large industrial
users, who had a big reason to have efficient unloading procedures, it is not
hard to see why they rapidly abandoned development of additional drop bottom
or low side gondolas in favor of a large and effective open hopper fleet.
The PRR's gon fleet quickly developed into one oriented around non-mineral
loads as a result. Other railroads with far different experiences with
mineral loads had little reason to go to the extreme of developing a big
standard hopper fleet, so may have had little impetus to develop options
(like open hoppers) that would prevent them from using the cars in other
service, like a gon could be used. The PRR had almost no bottom-doored
gondolas after the mid-30's, while other roads had entire fleets of them.
It'd make a nice article!

Elden,

Perhaps, a summary of ownership of the type of gons would be helpful.

According to the AAR Car Service Division, there were 306,333 Gons owned by Class I RR's in the US on December 31st, 1948 (vs. 571,919 Hoppers either Covered or Open-Top - the open top include Ore Cars).

There were 305,501 Gons listed in the "Recapitulation of Car Equipment" in the April 1949 ORER. Basically, the car types based upon their Mechanical Designations may be sub-divided into three sub-types: - 1) Solid Bottom; 2) Side Dump; and 3) Center Dump. The Solid Bottom Gons could be further divided by either being type "GT" ("An open type car having high sides and solid bottom, suitable for unloading coal on dumping machines only, but not suitable for the mill trade"). Below is the split of gons owned by region into the four types:

Solid Bottom Drop Bottom
GT's Other Side Dump Center Dump Total
New England - 234 1,523 1,227 2,984
Great Lakes 605 47,922 93 888 49,508
Central East - 93,947 233 6 94,186

Pocahontas 3,257 10,432 50 5,484 19,223
Southern 626 22,337 6,563 15,708 45,231

Northwest - 7,159 16,568 - 23,737
Central West 209 8,786 42,530 619 52,144
Southwest - 15,097 3,390 11 18,498

Total Class I 5,097 205,514 70,947 23,943 305,501

The majority of GT Gons were owned by the RR's in the Pocahontas Region (2,004 by the VGN and 1,653 by the N&W - the C&O designated no cars as GT gons). The ERIE owned 596 of the 605 GT's in the Great Lakes Region.
About 60% of the Side Dump Gons were owned by the Central West RR's (8,761 by the ATSF, 8,434 by the CB&Q, 7,709 by the SP-Pac Lines, 5,666 by the UP & UCR, and 3,876 by the RI). The MILW had 9,006 side dump gons while other Northwest RR's having significant amounts included the NP with 3,573 and the GN with 2,197. In the Southern Region, the IC owned 3,587 side dump gons and the L&N 1,892. In the New England Region, the B&M owned 1,256 of the Region's 1,523 Side Dump Gons.

Almost two-thirds of the nation's 23,943 Center Dump Gons were owned by roads in the Southern Region - almost all by either the L&N (9,924) or the SOU (5,716). Others roads having a significant number of Center Drop Gons were the N&W (5,451) and the New Haven (1,138).

Hope this helps, Tim Gilbert



Yahoo! Groups Links

It looks like D&H was the only railroad to offer
anthracite in gons.

It looks like D&H was the only railroad to offer
anthracite in gons.