I'd like to remind the group that anthracite use as fuel was seasonal.

Chuck Yungkurth told us how he played on a sea of Lackawanna hoppers
during the summer. I've heard that the mines (ha!) were shut down for a
while during the summer.

I lived in the snow belt where it could snow 8 months out of the year.

Foreign road hoppers must have been returned to their home roads when
there was an excess of hoppers. I'm sure no attempt was made to return
foreign road hoppers during the coldest weather when there was a
shortage of hoppers.

My hypothesis is that the percentage of off road anthracite hoppers on
the anthracite railroads varied depending on the time of the year.

I wonder if hoppers from railroads serving anthracite producers were
ever returned to railroads servicing bituminous producers? Do
anthracite railroad hoppers every show up in photos of trains hauling
bituminous coal?

I also wonder how frequently hoppers from railroads serving bituminous
producers were relaoded with anthracite?

I have a couple of photos taken by the official Erie photographer taken
at a mine serviced by Erie showing PRR, DL&W & RDG hoppers being loaded
with bituminous coal on Erie's Bradford branch which is about 80 miles
south of Buffalo.

Ed

The most interesting part of the discussion of various uses of anthracite, and its shipment in Reading hoppers, is that it may explain the photo I have of a Reading hopper in Los Angeles in the early 1960s.

Tony Thompson Editor, Signature Press, Berkeley, CA
2906 Forest Ave., Berkeley, CA 94705 www.signaturepress.com
(510) 540-6538; fax, (510) 540-1937; e-mail, thompson@...
Publishers of books on railroad history

I'm not sure where, butI am sure I've seen phots of WM coal trains with Reading
hoppers in them.

CJ Riley

--- ed_mines <ed_mines@...> wrote:

I'd like to remind the group that anthracite use as fuel was seasonal.

Chuck Yungkurth told us how he played on a sea of Lackawanna hoppers
during the summer. I've heard that the mines (ha!) were shut down for a
while during the summer.

I lived in the snow belt where it could snow 8 months out of the year.

Foreign road hoppers must have been returned to their home roads when
there was an excess of hoppers. I'm sure no attempt was made to return
foreign road hoppers during the coldest weather when there was a
shortage of hoppers.

My hypothesis is that the percentage of off road anthracite hoppers on
the anthracite railroads varied depending on the time of the year.

I wonder if hoppers from railroads serving anthracite producers were
ever returned to railroads servicing bituminous producers? Do
anthracite railroad hoppers every show up in photos of trains hauling
bituminous coal?

I also wonder how frequently hoppers from railroads serving bituminous
producers were relaoded with anthracite?

I have a couple of photos taken by the official Erie photographer taken
at a mine serviced by Erie showing PRR, DL&W & RDG hoppers being loaded
with bituminous coal on Erie's Bradford branch which is about 80 miles
south of Buffalo.

Ed

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I don't know if anthracite was found along the MP, but I've
seen photos of lots of MP coal hoppers in the Santa Fe yard
in San Bernadino, California. I guess this coal came from
Missouri or Illinois.

Tim



There was some anthracite found in Arkansas in the large cola fields along
the Arkansas River northwest Little Rock. Also the bituminous coal found in
western end of the Arkansas coal field was high grade metallurgical coal. I
understand a lot of the metallurgical coal went west to Colorado and Utah.
I also under the anthracite was used at least in the region for home
heating. I would have to look at the D&R by Bill Pollard to back these
facts up.



Respectfully submitted



Charles D. Shope

AKA BleuBayouEagle

cshope@... <mailto:cshope@...>





_____

From: Tim O'Connor [mailto:timboconnor@...]
Sent: Saturday, March 03, 2007 10:57 AM
To: STMFC@...
Subject: Re: [STMFC] anthracite hoppers




I don't know if anthracite was found along the MP, but I've
seen photos of lots of MP coal hoppers in the Santa Fe yard
in San Bernadino, California. I guess this coal came from
Missouri or Illinois.

At 3/1/2007 02:16 PM Thursday, you wrote:

The most interesting part of the discussion of various uses of
anthracite, and its shipment in Reading hoppers, is that it may explain
the photo I have of a Reading hopper in Los Angeles in the early 1960s.

Tony Thompson

On Mar 3, 2007, at 8:56 AM, Tim O'Connor wrote:

I don't know if anthracite was found along the MP, but I've
seen photos of lots of MP coal hoppers in the Santa Fe yard
in San Bernadino, California. I guess this coal came from
Missouri or Illinois.

In the '50s coal for the Kaiser steel mill at Fontana came across Cajon Pass in MoPac hoppers, though I don't know where it came from. The Kaiser mill was the only So. Calif. recipient of coal in significant amounts.

Richard Hendrickson

Richard Hendrickson wrote:

In the '50s coal for the Kaiser steel mill at Fontana came across Cajon Pass in MoPac hoppers, though I don't know where it came from. The Kaiser mill was the only So. Calif. recipient of coal in significant amounts.

Nearly all this coal was western Colorado/eastern Utah coal. There are photos of both Utah Coal Route gons, and D&RGW gons and hoppers, at Kaiser. Given the historic connections and cooperation between Mopac and the Rio Grande, one can imagine some car sharing.

Tony Thompson Editor, Signature Press, Berkeley, CA
2906 Forest Ave., Berkeley, CA 94705 www.signaturepress.com
(510) 540-6538; fax, (510) 540-1937; e-mail, thompson@...
Publishers of books on railroad history

In the '50s coal for the Kaiser steel mill at Fontana came across
Cajon Pass in MoPac hoppers, though I don't know where it came from.
The Kaiser mill was the only So. Calif. recipient of coal in
significant amounts.

Nearly all this coal was western Colorado/eastern Utah coal.
There are photos of both Utah Coal Route gons, and D&RGW gons and
hoppers, at Kaiser. Given the historic connections and cooperation
between Mopac and the Rio Grande, one can imagine some car sharing.
Tony Thompson

While it's true that much Fontana coal and ore came from Utah, I have
not seen photos of MP hoppers on the Rio Grande or UP in that area. I
think it's idle speculation in the absence of photos.

Tim O'Connor

--- In STMFC@..., Tim O'Connor <timboconnor@...> wrote:

I don't know if anthracite was found along the MP, but I've
seen photos of lots of MP coal hoppers in the Santa Fe yard
in San Bernadino, California. I guess this coal came from
Missouri or Illinois.

Tim -

That was probably metallurgical grade coal or coke in the MP hoppers
out there. It may have come from Arkansas or Illinois.

Down here in south Texas, there was some lignite coal (quite nice
lignite coal on the I-GN at Rockdale, Texas - almost as good quality
as bitumenous), but no anthracite. It was used locally as fuel.
Also found in poorer quality at Lytle, Texas on MP.

The anthracite used in water treatment plants most certainly came
from Pennsylvania - it was specially cleaned, washed and graded for
that purpose.

There was some bitumenous coal on the T&P west of Ft Worth. It had
no special characteristics, other than for use as fuel. T&P rostered
some double offset-side hoppers in the steam era for this traffic.

There was/is some wierd, unique coal in a small area that was served
by the I-GN at Laredo, Texas. A shortline, Rio Grande & Eagle Pass,
ran northwest out of Laredo to a "cannel" coal field at Minera, Texas
on the Rio Grande. This was a waxey coal - I have no idea what it
was used for, but it had a specialty use during the steam era -
possibly as a component of varnishes. It was similar, but not
identical to, gilsonite in the Book Cliff area of Colorado.

Note that Piedras Negras, Mexico is across the river from Eagle Pass,
Texas. Piedras Negras means "black rock" in Spanish - coal, but not
the cannel type, despite the nearness to Minera. There was a huge
steel rolling mill on the Mexican side during the steam era. A now-
deceased friend purchased the RG&EP rail and equipment in 1942 so
that he could construct the AFbase at Del Rio - he could not obtain
heavy equipment any faster way in those times. Their only loco was
an ex-LV GE 44-tonner, I recall.

A.T. Kott

Tim O'Connor wrote:

While it's true that much Fontana coal and ore came from Utah, I have not seen photos of MP hoppers on the Rio Grande or UP in that area. I think it's idle speculation in the absence of photos.

Tim is right: I have not seen Mopac hoppers in photos at the Colorado/Utah mines either, though I have not particularly searched them. I was indeed speculating, though on the basis of other inter-road cooperation between D&RGW and MP. As pointed out, the Mopac coal may well have come from somewhere else.

Tony Thompson Editor, Signature Press, Berkeley, CA
2906 Forest Ave., Berkeley, CA 94705 www.signaturepress.com
(510) 540-6538; fax, (510) 540-1937; e-mail, thompson@...
Publishers of books on railroad history

Could also be petroleum coke from the Coffeyville KS area.

Russ

Oh Tom,

Before I get put in STMC_Jail for off topic here is a shot my brother took
in Las Vegas (the route of the coal for Fontana) and this "ain't-no" MP car and
I am sure it was not hauling Anthracite either. Just caught in service for
hire...

_http://www.fortunecity.com/westwood/beautiful/819/Ed/H43/Ed_H43.htm_
(http://www.fortunecity.com/westwood/beautiful/819/Ed/H43/Ed_H43.htm)

And the later it got in the life of the haul the more mixed cars were in the
train. I have many, many, shots of this train with all types of equipment
pulling it and acting as helpers, and all types of cars hauling those black
diamonds

Greg Martin

We have many small "windows" into the past...of different types from photos
to frt conductor books. These "windows" provide us with "leads" but it's
difficult to be confident with conclusions that might be drawn. To add to
the confusion of this case, I have photos of MP hoppers in Laramie in the
early 50's. Should we jump to conclusions about their cargo? Not me.
Mike Brock

I do know MP and Southern hoppers came into Pueblo on the MP. During
the beet season open hoppers were in great demand and you could see a
real mish-mosh of different owners' cars loaded with beets. And coal
was loaded on the 'Colorado & Wyoming' branch out of Laramie; I don't
know if any of it was sent to CF&I in Pueblo. I'm not speculating;
just suggesting a possible routing to look up as a way that MP (or
Southern, or N&W) hoppers may have ended up in Laramie...

As for Tony's idea of MP cars in Utah, I have to say I'm amazed how
hard it is to find photos of the diverse cars that could be found at
the USS Geneva steel works in Provo. Many parts of the mill and the
freight yards were very visible from public roads. Freight car fans
are just a tiny minority of the railfanning public, I guess.

Tim O'Connor

Thanks for the pics. Haven't seen the PC "worms" in real action in quite some time.

Todd K. Stearns

Tim O'Connor wrote:

I do know MP and Southern hoppers came into Pueblo on the MP. During
the beet season open hoppers were in great demand and you could see a
real mish-mosh of different owners' cars loaded with beets. And coal
was loaded on the 'Colorado & Wyoming' branch out of Laramie; I don't
know if any of it was sent to CF&I in Pueblo.

Evelyn Coal in NW Arkansas on the MP was the supplier used to
obtain "low volatility" coal by CF&I in the early 1950's to mix in with
the "high volatility" coal of the Grande to improve the coking
qualities. This is very likely the source of many MP hoppers in Pueblo.

Olin Dirks
Omaha, NE