Santa Fe gurus are no doubt pulling out what hair they have left today after viewing the photo on pg 25 of the just appearing War Bonnet, First Quarter 2008. They probably thought...ohhh nooo...when they looked carefully at the photo. It shows a nice view of the San Bernardino yard in 1950 with mention that the El Captitan is arriving. However, much more interesting to those on the STMFC that are always on the lookout for "eastern style" hoppers in California is a string of cars 5 tracks away. Here we see no less than 8 MP 3 bay hopper cars [ maybe more ]...filled with what looks like...well...coal. MP's coal source was primarily the fields in Southern Illinois which is categorized as "...a high volatile, medium sulfur, low ash, high BTU bituminous coal" in the book Burlington Bulletin No. 35, The Q in the Coal Fields". Coal gurus can tell us if this source is classified as metallurgical coal but the Burlington book does not give such an impression.

Coincidentally, there are photos of other MP hopper cars "lost" out in the "real west". America's Colorful Railroads shows no less than 2 MT's being returned eastward on the D&RGW in Tennessee Pass and The Iron Horse and I shows MP hoppers in...of all places...Laramie, WY.

I've always been an admirer of the MP "Eagles" logo but I must confess I didn't think those in California would be so blessed as to see it as well as those in Laramie.

Mike Brock

Mike Brock wrote:

MP's coal source was primarily the fields in
Southern Illinois which is categorized as "...a high volatile, medium
sulfur, low ash, high BTU bituminous coal" in the book Burlington
Bulletin No. 35, The Q in the Coal Fields". Coal gurus can tell us if
this source is classified as metallurgical coal but the Burlington
book does not give such an impression.

No, the coal mines served by the MP that had met coal were in NW Arkansas.

Coincidentally, there are photos of other MP hopper cars "lost" out
in the "real west". America's Colorful Railroads shows no less than 2
MT's being returned eastward on the D&RGW in Tennessee Pass and The
Iron Horse and I shows MP hoppers in...of all places...Laramie, WY.

See above, think Geneva Steel, Provo UT.

IMO it would be ***highly*** unlikely that ordinary steam coal would be
shipped to the west coast from S. Ill or NW Arkansas, given the ready
availability of equivalent coal from Utah, Colorado, and New Mexico.
'Course, it could be coal from those locations that happened to be in MP
hoppers... but I'd bet, oh, a nickle, that it was met coal from Arkansas.
Esp. as it is documented the Fontana steel in CA. did bring in Arkansas met
coal for trial.

Dave Nelson

On Mar 25, 2008, at 5:00 PM, Mike Brock wrote:

Santa Fe gurus are no doubt pulling out what hair they have left today
after
viewing the photo on pg 25 of the just appearing War Bonnet, First
Quarter
2008. They probably thought...ohhh nooo...when they looked carefully
at the
photo. It shows a nice view of the San Bernardino yard in 1950 with
mention
that the El Captitan is arriving. However, much more interesting to
those on
the STMFC that are always on the lookout for "eastern style" hoppers
in
California is a string of cars 5 tracks away. Here we see no less
than 8 MP
3 bay hopper cars [ maybe more ]...filled with what looks
like...well...coal. MP's coal source was primarily the fields in
Southern
Illinois which is categorized as "...a high volatile, medium sulfur,
low
ash, high BTU bituminous coal" in the book Burlington Bulletin No.
35, The Q
in the Coal Fields". Coal gurus can tell us if this source is
classified as
metallurgical coal but the Burlington book does not give such an
impression.

Coincidentally, there are photos of other MP hopper cars "lost" out
in the
"real west". America's Colorful Railroads shows no less than 2 MT's
being
returned eastward on the D&RGW in Tennessee Pass and The Iron Horse
and I
shows MP hoppers in...of all places...Laramie, WY.

Mike, I can't account for MP hoppers in Laramie, but their presence in
San Bernardino is no surprise. In the 1950s MP hoppers were
extensively used to bring coal to the Kaiser steel mill at Fontana.
Where that coal came from I don't know; in the '40s Kaiser got a lot of
Utah coal via the Rio Grande/UP/Santa Fe, mostly in D&RGW, UP, and UCR
drop bottom gondolas, but I assume the MP hoppers were carrying coal
from some other point of origin. In any case, those MP hoppers never
got any further into Southern Calif. than Fontana, which is only a few
miles from San Bernardino. So my claim still holds that, in the Los
Angeles area post-WW-II, one literally saw hopper cars less often than
helium tank cars.

Richard Hendrickson

Dave Nelson writes:

"No, the coal mines served by the MP that had met coal were in NW Arkansas."

Dave, can you tell us more about the location in Arkansas? I traveled from Memphis through Little Rock and Ft. Smith many, many times during the period '43 through '60 and recall seeing coal mines somewhere between Little Rock and Ft. Smith...probably somewhere near Magazine Mountain...which I think was the highest point in Ark. I'm curious if that is the location you refer to.

Coincidentally, there are photos of other MP hopper cars "lost" out
in the "real west". America's Colorful Railroads shows no less than 2
MT's being returned eastward on the D&RGW in Tennessee Pass and The
Iron Horse and I shows MP hoppers in...of all places...Laramie, WY.

See above, think Geneva Steel, Provo UT.

Well, of course since this has been discussed several times, I can understand the MP hoppers on the D&RGW but...in Laramie? Seems a mite out of the way to go from Arkansas to SLC.

"IMO it would be ***highly*** unlikely that ordinary steam coal would be
shipped to the west coast from S. Ill or NW Arkansas, given the ready
availability of equivalent coal from Utah, Colorado, and New Mexico."

Logical. However, Coal from Southern Illinois found its way to the Great Lakes which might be surprising given the proximity of the lakes to Appalachian coal.

"'Course, it could be coal from those locations that happened to be in MP
hoppers... but I'd bet, oh, a nickle, that it was met coal from Arkansas.
Esp. as it is documented the Fontana steel in CA. did bring in Arkansas met
coal for trial."

Not meaning to dispute Dave, but upon futher review I find this:

"Lastly, a small portion of the coal mined in S. Illinois was of a grade suitable for coking. This metalurgical grade coal was used by the steel industry." While this does point the coal in the MP hoppers as metalurgical to S. Illinois as its source, one might wonder why it we don't see coal carrying cars of the CB&Q in Cal and Col. OTOH, maybe we do.

Mike Brock

Mike,
There were Coal Mines around Russelville, Clarksville, Ozark, and
south of Ft Smith around Greenwood. I have pictures of the MP yard in
Van Buren with many Coal Hoppers/Gons in the yard. I have information
from several sources that the Coal from this area was shipped to
Europe as well as steel mills in Colo. and Calif. Both the Frisco and
MP served mines located in this part of AR.

George A Walls





Dave Nelson writes:

"No, the coal mines served by the MP that had met coal were in NW

Arkansas."

Dave, can you tell us more about the location in Arkansas? I

traveled from

Memphis through Little Rock and Ft. Smith many, many times during

the period

'43 through '60 and recall seeing coal mines somewhere between

Little Rock

and Ft. Smith...probably somewhere near Magazine Mountain...which I

think

was the highest point in Ark. I'm curious if that is the location

you refer

to.

Coincidentally, there are photos of other MP hopper cars "lost"

out

in the "real west". America's Colorful Railroads shows no less

than 2

MT's being returned eastward on the D&RGW in Tennessee Pass and

The

Iron Horse and I shows MP hoppers in...of all places...Laramie,

WY.

See above, think Geneva Steel, Provo UT.

Well, of course since this has been discussed several times, I can
understand the MP hoppers on the D&RGW but...in Laramie? Seems a

mite out of

the way to go from Arkansas to SLC.

"IMO it would be ***highly*** unlikely that ordinary steam coal

would be

shipped to the west coast from S. Ill or NW Arkansas, given the

ready

availability of equivalent coal from Utah, Colorado, and New

Mexico."

Logical. However, Coal from Southern Illinois found its way to the

Great

Lakes which might be surprising given the proximity of the lakes to
Appalachian coal.

"'Course, it could be coal from those locations that happened to be

in MP

hoppers... but I'd bet, oh, a nickle, that it was met coal from

Arkansas.

Esp. as it is documented the Fontana steel in CA. did bring in

Arkansas met

coal for trial."

Not meaning to dispute Dave, but upon futher review I find this:

"Lastly, a small portion of the coal mined in S. Illinois was of a

grade

suitable for coking. This metalurgical grade coal was used by the

steel

industry." While this does point the coal in the MP hoppers as

metalurgical

to S. Illinois as its source, one might wonder why it we don't see

coal

carrying cars of the CB&Q in Cal and Col. OTOH, maybe we do.

Mike Brock

--- In STMFC@..., Richard Hendrickson <rhendrickson@...>
wrote:

Mike, I can't account for MP hoppers in Laramie, but their presence in
San Bernardino is no surprise. In the 1950s MP hoppers were
extensively used to bring coal to the Kaiser steel mill at Fontana.

Allow me to add the following regarding coke from Mineral Commodities
of California, Bulletin 156, 1950...

"Metallurgical-grade coke has been produced in California only since
1943. This output is obtained at the Kaiser Company's Fontana steel
plant which uses coal from Utah and Arkansas as raw material. There
is no record of previous commercial coke production in California.
California produces but small amounts of non-coking coal and depends
on other western states for coking coal to support its expanding iron-
and steel-smelting industry."

"In 1948 the monthly blast-furnace coke yield at Fontana was 27,500
tons. This was produced from high-volatile coal from the company's
Sunnyside mine in Utah, mixed with a few thousand tons of low-volatile
coal from Arkansas."

"Coke produced at the Fontana plant is used as blast-furnace fuel and
in the open-hearth production of steel. Several hundred tons of
breeze and small amounts of nut coke are sold each month."

"Blast-furnace coke produced at Fontana is not usually sold on the
open market... A considerable amount of coke produced elsewhere is
consumed by open-hearth steel plants, foundries, non-ferrous smelters,
and in various industrial plants in the state."

"More than 95 percent of United States coke is made from coal mined in
the east, midwest, and south. Coking plants are located near centers
of pig-iron production, which are mainly in Pennsylvania, Illinois,
Ohio, New York, Indiana, and Alabama."

While the above information certainly explains the coal shipments to
Fontana, it makes me wonder about those coke shipments to other users
in California.

John Hile

That's very interesting info from John Hile -- thanks, John.

For what it's worth, there's also an MP 70-ton hopper, no. 55156, shown as
the first car of an eastward steam-powered Santa Fe freight in a color photo
taken at Ono, Calif., by Jack Whitmeyer on June 11, 1952, reproduced on page
24 of the late Chard Walker's "Cajon, a Pictorial Album." No load is visible
from the photo's trackside angle, but the empties had to get back to
Arkansas, right?

So long,

Andy

Andy Sperandeo
Executive Editor
Model Railroader magazine
asperandeo@...
262-796-8776, ext. 461
FAX 262-796-1142

John Hile wrote:

"More than 95 percent of United States coke is made
from coal mined in the east, midwest, and south.
Coking plants are located near centers of pig-iron
production, which are mainly in Pennsylvania,
Illinois, Ohio, New York, Indiana, and Alabama."

What exactly is the difference between "pig-iron" and
regular iron?. Is one of lower quality than the other?

Shawn Beckert

Shawn,

Here's what Wikipedia has to say:

*Pig iron* is the intermediate product of smelting <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smelting> steel ore with coke <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coke_%28fuel%29> and resin <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resin>. Pig iron has a very high carbon <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon> content, typically 3.5 - 4.5%,^[1] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pig_iron#cite_note-msts-0> which makes it very brittle <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brittle> and not useful directly as a material except for limited applications.

The traditional shape of the molds used for these ingots was a branching structure formed in sand <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sand>, with many individual ingots at right angles to a central channel or /runner./ Such a configuration is similar in appearance to a litter of piglets <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piglet> suckling on a sow. When the metal had cooled and hardened, the smaller ingots (the /pigs/) were simply broken from the much thinner runner (the /sow/), hence the name /pig iron/. As pig iron is intended for remelting, the uneven size of the ingots and inclusion of small amounts of sand was insignificant compared to the ease of casting and of handling.

I might add, that the pigs would be later remelted to make wrought iron or steel products. If you ever visit Steamtown in Scranton, Pennsylvania, don't miss the adjacent pig iron furnaces, now operated as a local park. The musuem is quite informative.

Kind regards,


Garth G. Groff



Beckert, Shawn wrote:

John Hile wrote:

"More than 95 percent of United States coke is made from coal mined
in the east, midwest, and south. Coking plants are located near
centers of pig-iron production, which are mainly in Pennsylvania,
Illinois, Ohio, New York, Indiana, and Alabama."

While the above information certainly explains the coal shipments to
Fontana, it makes me wonder about those coke shipments to other users
in California.

I have a copy of an early 40's document from the WP President's files that
cites receipt of a couple of carloads of Alabama Coke for use by a central
California Sugar refinery (pure carbon needed for the purification of the
sugar liquor).

So on occasion such materials did travel far afield. Perhaps on some
regular basis. But the volume, when viewed in the grand scheme of things of
Steam Era Railroading, it needs to be understood as a freak event. Having
captured it on film doesn't change that... more likely that image just
documents the freakish nature of what's been seen.

Dave Nelson

Beckert, Shawn wrote:

What exactly is the difference between "pig-iron" and regular iron?. Is one of lower quality than the other?

Garth Groff provided a succinct definition of pig iron from Wikipedia. I hesitated to answer, Shawn, because I had no idea what you meant by "regular iron." <g> There are many products which are made from low-carbon steel but colloquially called "iron," such as angle iron. Like all "regular iron," it is of course nearly all composed of that atom designated "Fe" but has specific qualities which make it a steel.

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 STMFC@..., "Garth G. Groff" <ggg9y@...> wrote:

I might add, that the pigs would be later remelted to make wrought iron
or steel products.

Aw Garth, you were doing so good until you got to that last paragraph :-)

Wrought iron was never actually liquefied, it was an archaic way of
producing iron from a semi liquid mass of metallic iron and slag, by
hammering (the wrought part) on the plastic mass until the slag had
mostly broken away and the iron consolidated. It has a characteristic
grain formed by slag inclusions that give it its strength. The process
was effectively obsolete by 1900. Things we call "wrought iron" today,
like railings and patio furniture are simply mild steel, crafted in
the style of wrought iron.

Pig iron wouldn't be further refined to steel, either, this was done
as a secondary operation when the iron was still molten from it's
reduction in the blast furnace This was done by blowing air through it
to burn out the carbon, most often using the Bessemer process in our
time period, and the Basic Oxygen process today.

What pig iron was is feedstock for iron foundries. Just as today few
if any plastic injection molders actually polymerize their own
feedstock, instead buying chemically complete material in pellet form
and simply melting it and molding it to shape, most iron foundries
didn't smelt ore for their iron, but rather bought pig iron to melt
and pour into whatever product they made. Back in the era covered by
this list, some major uses would be stoves, car wheels, and machinery
parts, and every manufacturer of these products had a foundry on-site
that would receive car loads of pig iron and coke for fuel. Pig iron
was so heavy and low in value for its weight that it was most often
shipped as heaps of pigs dumped in open tight floor gondolas, to be
unloaded either by a crane with a magnet or by hand, depending on the
size of the operation.

Dennis

Dennis,

Thanks for the correction. You are, of course, correct about wrought iron. We all can learn something every day.

Kind regards,


Garth G. Groff

Dennis Storzek wrote:

Guys,

Thanks to all for the voluminous amount of information on pig iron. I'll
go
out on a limb and guess that this particular type of gondola load hasn't
been offered in HO scale. It would probably be easy to do by taking some
plastic sprues or rods, cutting them into various lengths and rounding
off
the ends. Shaping and gluing them into a realistic load might be a
problem
though; perhaps it would be easier to just pour them into a gondola and
leave them as a loose load. Maybe a good way to cover a weight, for
those
cars that don't have room between floor and underframe.

Shawn Beckert

I recall seeing MP gondolas with container spotted at foundries
along the Santa Fe in Santa Ana and Elsinore. I checked the April
1966 Railway Equipment Register and found 21 MP cars in the 21000
series that were equiped with 11 containers for the handling of
coke.

The last deliveries of coke in the Orange County are that I know of
was to the Anaheim Foundry in I think the late 1980s or early 1990s
and it was in hopper cars.

Cliff Prather



--- In STMFC@..., "John Hile" <john66h@...> wrote:

--- In STMFC@..., Richard Hendrickson <rhendrickson@>
wrote:

Mike, I can't account for MP hoppers in Laramie, but their

presence in

San Bernardino is no surprise. In the 1950s MP hoppers were
extensively used to bring coal to the Kaiser steel mill at

Fontana.

Allow me to add the following regarding coke from Mineral

Commodities

of California, Bulletin 156, 1950...

"Metallurgical-grade coke has been produced in California only

since

1943. This output is obtained at the Kaiser Company's Fontana

steel

plant which uses coal from Utah and Arkansas as raw material.

There

is no record of previous commercial coke production in California.
California produces but small amounts of non-coking coal and

depends

on other western states for coking coal to support its expanding

iron-

and steel-smelting industry."

"In 1948 the monthly blast-furnace coke yield at Fontana was 27,500
tons. This was produced from high-volatile coal from the company's
Sunnyside mine in Utah, mixed with a few thousand tons of low-

volatile

coal from Arkansas."

"Coke produced at the Fontana plant is used as blast-furnace fuel

and

in the open-hearth production of steel. Several hundred tons of
breeze and small amounts of nut coke are sold each month."

"Blast-furnace coke produced at Fontana is not usually sold on the
open market... A considerable amount of coke produced elsewhere is
consumed by open-hearth steel plants, foundries, non-ferrous

smelters,

and in various industrial plants in the state."

"More than 95 percent of United States coke is made from coal

mined in

the east, midwest, and south. Coking plants are located near

centers

of pig-iron production, which are mainly in Pennsylvania,

Illinois,

Ohio, New York, Indiana, and Alabama."

While the above information certainly explains the coal shipments

to

Fontana, it makes me wonder about those coke shipments to other

users

in California.

John Hile

It's very possible that MP hoppers may have run over Sherman Hill on
the UP in the early 50's because Geneva Steel also used 20% Arkansas
Coal between 1956 and 1966. It's possible that it may have started
earlier.

Low-volatile Bituminous Coal such as found primarily in NW Arkansas,
parts of Eastern Pennsylvania and parts of West Virginia when mixed
with Utah high volatile met coal produced a mix with better coking
characteristics.

See posts from Bruce Collins on the DRGW list and Utahrails for further
info:
http://utahrails.net/utahcoal/utahcoal-other.php

Olin Dirks
Omaha, NE

It's very possible that MP hoppers may have run over Sherman Hill on
the UP in the early 50's because Geneva Steel also used 20% Arkansas
Coal between 1956 and 1966. It's possible that it may have started
earlier.

Don't know if this helps the general history or not, but I have a photo of a
solitary loaded MoPac gondola headed west at Laramie (probably taken when I
should have been studying for vertebrate morphology or some such class) in
the 1970s. Remember the steam era never ended on the Union Pacific! :^)

Jerry Michels



**************Planning your summer road trip? Check out AOL Travel Guides.
(http://travel.aol.com/travel-guide/united-states?ncid=aoltrv00030000000016)

What type of 3-bay hoppers were typically used by the MP in this
service?

Thanks,
Rob Simpson


--- In STMFC@..., "Mike Brock" <brockm@...> wrote:

Santa Fe gurus are no doubt pulling out what hair they have left

today after viewing the photo on pg 25 of the just appearing War
Bonnet, First Quarter 2008. They probably thought...ohhh nooo...when
they looked carefully at the photo. It shows a nice view of the San
Bernardino yard in 1950 with mention that the El Captitan is
arriving. However, much more interesting to those on the STMFC that
are always on the lookout for "eastern style" hoppers in California
is a string of cars 5 tracks away. Here we see no less than 8 MP 3
bay hopper cars [ maybe more ]...filled with what looks
like...well...coal. MP's coal source was primarily the fields in
Southern Illinois which is categorized as "...a high volatile, medium
sulfur, low ash, high BTU bituminous coal" in the book Burlington
Bulletin No. 35, The Q in the Coal Fields". Coal gurus can tell us if
this source is classified as metallurgical coal but the Burlington
book does not give such an impression.

Coincidentally, there are photos of other MP hopper cars "lost" out

in the "real west". America's Colorful Railroads shows no less than 2
MT's being returned eastward on the D&RGW in Tennessee Pass and The
Iron Horse and I shows MP hoppers in...of all places...Laramie, WY.

I've always been an admirer of the MP "Eagles" logo but I must

confess I didn't think those in California would be so blessed as to
see it as well as those in Laramie.

Mike Brock