The worst incident Al told me was of the newby who was told to figure out the problem on an offal gon set out on a siding for creating a brake line leak. The crew dropped him off and left. He spent al

Fritz; Here is my model of an offal gon, done at the direction of Al Buchan, who witnessed these cars in action. Apparently, they used gons on their last legs, coated on the inside with asphaltum, but

Guys; Be aware that many X31A (and X31, X31B, etc.) had interior racks or Evans car loaders that resulted in exterior reinforcement plates or angles. Can we see the pic? Elden Gatwood

Definitely grey with the black lettering. They were grey by mid-forties, but some remained in red in 1956. See attached. Elden Gatwood

The smoke came from the wooden car body or flooring burning, not the coke itself Unquenched coke loads did indeed continue steaming, sometimes hours after the quench. They trucked coke out of Clairton

Beautiful car, AND load, Dick! I am a sucker for well, and well hole cars. This one is fantastic. Elden Gatwood

Also widely used in Burma, New Guinea, etc. The horses I mentioned were “replacements” for huge losses in France, Poland, Germany, etc., due to losses from artillery, and starving civilians. They were

Philip; I remember that well from growing up in W PA. There were many instances of incompletely-quenched coke going out in dump trucks, hoppers and gondolas. That was why there were so many partly or

Nice job, Charlie! Wash was very effective in bringing out detail. Elden Gatwood

Somebody asked, “whose gon was it? (the “abandoned” one). It wasn’t exactly abandoned, just no one knew whose it was. I crawled all over it, and IIRC, there were faint remains of “PM”, IIRC. It could

Yes, they were, and we shipped huge numbers of both to devastated portions of Europe and Asia due to the numbers of casualties in animals. My stepfather accompanied and wrangled shipments of horses fr

OK, OK, the mooing stock car is over the top, but some “animatronics” can liven up an operating session, especially when you introduce something with no warning. My bad order cars/shifted loads/etc.,

Bob; That’s great! “Expedited departure phenomenon”! Elden Gatwood

Guys; Here’s a couple shifted load pics from the Hagley. The GR and GRA had weak ends that pretty much exploded on impact. Plus, a converted G22 into G22C interior for scrap loading. Elden Gatwood

Rob; I did a load of hot (burning) coke in a gon, for a guy that worked with me a while ago, that wanted some operational fun. The load was real coke glued on top of a base with a AAA battery and flic

Jim; It was far more than I certainly thought! I think there was reluctance to (immediately) send the cars to a RIP track, because the guys who rounded up the gons were hoping they’d be accepted. A lo

My friend Al Buchan had a series of stories on the PRR’s offal gons, that he related to me when I built my model. First, it was the most unpopular load on the RR, for obvious reasons. Management did n

Agreed. There was a big problem with cars in the STMFC that amounted to literally thousands of damaged cars on the big roads, at any given time. In some years it was astonishing how many as a percenta

Folks; Thought you’d enjoy the attached and see if anyone had the guts to model it. I talked to a few of my friends, and we think it is a bad repair of a burned-out wooden floor. The MRY is south of t

Tim; There were some made years ago, when I asked a friend who did etched brass to do a few Duryea u/f’s for me (for B&O freight cars). He also did some others for “scale” couplers in more standard mo