There are a couple of books of NKP publicity photos with many of the
photos taken in the steam era.

In the text of onoe of these books it says that most coal on the NKP
came from the C&O (at one time the 2 roads were affiliated by a
common owner; they even shared offices).

NKP had a moderate sized fleet of their own hoppers. Is it possible
that their own fleet was used to ship coal for company use? I've
wondered about this for other railroads - Wabash I think.

There's a color book of CNJ steam and a NKP composite hopper shows up
in several of the photos. Could that be after NKP switched to diesels?

Someone (Chuck Yungkurth?) called "out of place" hoppers "strays".
After you have a couple of photos of common cars you're likely to
take photos of the odd balls that stand out. How many photos of
WAG "sole leather line" SS box cars have you seen?

It's telling that there are few if any photos of C&O hoppers in the
Culotta-Klein book.

I saw some data on coal shipments for one of the anthracite region
railroads that had their own fleet of hoppers. Yearly shipments in
foreign hoppers exceeded shipments in home home road hoppers.

I've oftened wondered if this was seasonal with off road hoppers
being returned when the home road could supply enough hoppers to
customers (during the summer). There was a hopper shortage during the
peak season for coal and no attempt was made to return off road
hoppers.

Ed

Ed

Ed,

That would not necessarily be unusal.? The antracite roads (RDG, LV, CNJ, CRP, D&H, LNE) seem to have indiscrinantely loaded each others cars.? They even loaded PRR cars.? They were loosely aligned to get the antracite to market.? Following the first air pollution regulations in 1948 (Allegheny County, PA) which banned the use of bituminious coal for home heating, it became fairly common to see blocks of these cars in PRR trains carrying "hard" coal west for home heating purposes.

Rich Orr

Posted by: "ed_mines"

There are a couple of books of NKP publicity photos with many of the photos taken in the steam era. In the text of onoe of these books it says that most coal on the NKP came from the C&O (at one time the 2 roads were affiliated by a common owner; they even shared offices).

Be careful about believing things just because they are written in books. Errors can be found in even the best researched and written books. In the news media, usually more than 20 percent of what's written about railroads is erroneous.

Just looking at the map of the NKP shows that had to be wrong. It's perpendicular to C&O lines, hardly a logical connection. The W&LE, an NKP subsidiary, served coal mining areas. The fact that they had a common owner has nothing to do with how the coal was routed. The C&O shippers had the right to route over any other railroad they wanted to use beyond Cincinnati, Columbus and Toledo.

NKP had a moderate sized fleet of their own hoppers. Is it possible that their own fleet was used to ship coal for company use?

Not likely. The railroads serving the mines controlled what cars were used. They would have accepted NKP cars for loading only when they had a shortage. And the serving railroads could not have required those cars to be used for coal to the NKp.


Malcolm Laughlin, Editor 617-489-4383
New England Rail Shipper Directories
19 Holden Road, Belmont, MA 02478

The NKP did recieve a ton for coal from the C&O at Fostoria in the
40's the yard there was expanded to handle the increasing
interchange traffic. Before the NKP leased the WLE its hoppers were
used to serve northern Ohio quarries. It operated a dedicated run
out of Bellevue (powered by an H-5 mike of NYC design into the
spring of 58) to a quarry near were the NKP and the PRR Toledo
branch crossed. This was at one point the NKP's single largest
shipper of stone and dolaminte.
N Fries
--- In STMFC@yahoogroups.com, Malcolm Laughlin <mlaughlinnyc@...>
wrote:

Posted by: "ed_mines"

There are a couple of books of NKP publicity photos with many of

the photos taken in the steam era. In the text of onoe of these
books it says that most coal on the NKP came from the C&O (at one
time the 2 roads were affiliated by a common owner; they even shared
offices).

Be careful about believing things just because they are written

in books. Errors can be found in even the best researched and
written books. In the news media, usually more than 20 percent of
what's written about railroads is erroneous.

Just looking at the map of the NKP shows that had to be wrong.

It's perpendicular to C&O lines, hardly a logical connection. The
W&LE, an NKP subsidiary, served coal mining areas. The fact that
they had a common owner has nothing to do with how the coal was
routed. The C&O shippers had the right to route over any other
railroad they wanted to use beyond Cincinnati, Columbus and Toledo.

NKP had a moderate sized fleet of their own hoppers. Is it

possible that their own fleet was used to ship coal for company use?

Not likely. The railroads serving the mines controlled what

cars were used. They would have accepted NKP cars for loading only
when they had a shortage. And the serving railroads could not have
required those cars to be used for coal to the NKp.

Malcolm Laughlin, Editor 617-489-4383
New England Rail Shipper Directories
19 Holden Road, Belmont, MA 02478

N Fries wrote:

The NKP did recieve a ton for coal from the C&O at Fostoria in the 40's . . .

That doesn't sound like it would tax even a single hopper <g>.

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@signaturepress.com
Publishers of books on railroad history

Ton was probably a poor choice of words. Anyway in 53 the NKP received
94,498 loaded cars from the C&O at Fostoria. They also received
another 11,000 from the PRR at Bellevue (my hometown) mostly N&W
hoppers.
N Fries