Hey guys, I'm fairly new to the group and have been kind of lurking around reading old posts.

I'm interested in modeling the G&F during the transition era. During my research, I've stumbled across several photos of cars that are not on any OER's or anywhere else that I can find mention of. There are also some cars listed that there doesn't seem to be much information about such as the 3 large 2755 cubic foot hoppers that Marty posted about a few days ago.

Here's another hopper question; In the attached photo is hopper #12017 with built date stenciled 9-23 which is part of the 26 hoppers mentioned in the 1959 and 1960 OER's here on Lee's site;

http://www.railgoat.railfan.net/other_cars/gf_cars/gf_roster/gf1959-01.htm

http://www.railgoat.railfan.net/other_cars/gf_cars/gf_roster/gf1960-04.htm

The OER's indicate that these were 1940 cubic foot cars. The lettering on the side indicates the car is 25xx cubic foot. The last two letters are unreadable to me, but the first two seem to be 25 for sure. This seems like too much cubic foot to be in a 34' ribbed side car. But the overall size of the car is not readily apparent from the photo. This photo albeit in a less angled view is on the cover of the October 1960 G&F magazine but is only about half the size of a business card. In the photo it does appear to be at least a 40' car. Is it possible that this might be a different size than the rest of the cars? Or could there have been several sizes amongst the cars? Or is the car just "mis-labeled"?. You can see where the previous road name was painted over with a stripe to hid the lettering. They also only appear in the 1959 and 1969 OER's. So it's possible that they may have been leased but haven't found any information indicating for sure.

I'm interested in modeling some of these cars, but have never seen a hopper with 7 panels. Can any of you identify the maker or possibly a previous road that owned them? Are there any known HO scale models of such a car or similar cars? Thanks! -Chris Dills

--- In STMFC@..., Chris Dills <cddx@...> wrote:

They also only appear in the 1959 and 1969 OER's.>

Sorry, that should've said 1959 and 1960.

--- In STMFC@..., Chris Dills <cddx@...> wrote:

Here's another hopper question; In the attached photo is hopper #12017 with built date stenciled 9-23 which is part of the 26 hoppers mentioned in the 1959 and 1960 OER's here on Lee's site;

http://www.railgoat.railfan.net/other_cars/gf_cars/gf_roster/gf1959-01.htm

http://www.railgoat.railfan.net/other_cars/gf_cars/gf_roster/gf1960-04.htm

The OER's indicate that these were 1940 cubic foot cars. The lettering on the side indicates the car is 25xx cubic foot. The last two letters are unreadable to me, but the first two seem to be 25 for sure... {snip} They also only appear in the 1959 and 1969 OER's.

Hi Chris,

The series appears in the April 1957 ORER (page 7 item 11) as:

Hopper, All Steel
12001 to 12026
IL 34'
IW 9'4"
OL 41'
EW 9'10"
EH 11'2"
CAPY 2508 cu ft., 100,000 lbs.

and in the Jan 1958 ORER (page 7 item 11) as:

Hopper, All Steel
12001 to 12026
IL 34'
IW 9'4"
OL 41'
EW 9'10"
EH 11'2"
CAPY 2508 cu ft., 100,000 lbs.


and in the April 1959 ORER (page 7 item 11) as:

Hopper, All Steel
12001 to 12026
IL 34'
IW 9'4"
OL 41'
EW 9'10"
EH 11'2"
CAPY 1940 cu ft., 100,000 lbs.


All entries are identical except that in the April 1959 listing, the cubic capacity was decreased to 1940 cu. ft. If these entries are all describing the same cars, which seems likely to me, it could be that the G&F reclassified the cubic capacity for some reason.

Here are the HMs with 34' IL from the Jan 1958 ORER:

RPT Start Stop IL CuFt CAPY #
DL&W 83300 83799 34 2151 100,000 451
DL&W 85000 85499 34 2151 100,000 422
L&N 186000 186299 34 2092 100,000 208
CG 21500 21699 34 2180 100,000 190
DL&W 85000 85499 34 1850 100,000 65
DL&W 83300 83799 34 1850 100,000 45
G&F 12001 12026 34 2508 100,000 26

Regards,

Charles Hostetler

Charles,

Thanks for the info!

Question though, why would they be classified as 34' cars if the overall was 41'? I'm guessing that is over end sills? or would that be over coupler faces? That kind of cubic foot would seem to be correct for a 40'-41' foot car. Could you hazard a guess as to why they would reclassify them with 568 less cubic foot? You would have to remove about five and a half feet from the length of the car to decrease the cubic footage by that amount. Which I'm guessing they didn't really do. Any ideas?

THANKS!

-Chris Dills

Let me rephrase that, Why would a car with 41' length overall only be classified as a 34' car. If memory serves me correctly, a car is classified by the inside length of the load carrying area. Most if not all hoppers have sloped end sheets that taper up to the ends of the cars. So why would 7' of the car not be listed? Is that normal?

--- In STMFC@..., Chris Dills <cddx@...> wrote:

Let me rephrase that, Why would a car with 41' length overall only be classified as a 34' car. If memory serves me correctly, a car is classified by the inside length of the load carrying area. Most if not all hoppers have sloped end sheets that taper up to the ends of the cars. So why would 7' of the car not be listed? Is that normal?

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Hi Chris,

The other 34' IL hoppers in that list I posted this morning had an OL of 35', a difference of 1' which appears to be typical for hoppers in general. So the G&F cars with a difference of 7' between IL and OL are not like the others in that respect.

This is just a guess, but the ACL and SAL both had open hoppers for carrying wet rock phosphate (and sand). They were rebuilt from regular hoppers with shortened interior and a platform near the top of each end for personnel to stand on. I wonder whether the G&F hoppers might have been of a similar design and use...

I'll send you scans of the G&F ORER pages as soon as I can get back home to my scanner.

Regards,

Charles Hostetler

Pretty sure those G&H hopper cars were DL&W quqads. Lackawanna sold off all their fleet starting around in about 40 since industrial shipping of anthracite went down and retail coal dealers didn't want coal in large cars. In many places their coal trestles couldn't take the weight.
 
It could be that the railraod changed the angle of the slope shhets from the 30 degrees cound in coal cars to the 60 degrees found in cement cars since most comodities other than coal won't flow down a 30 degree slope. When EL converted cement cars to ballat cars thye increased the slope sheets even more and some of them had paltes added to cover the wider space between the top of the car end and the upper edge of the slope sheet. So  in essence, when coal hoppers were coverted to other uses the cubic fottage gnerally went down.
 
Chuck Yungkurth
Boulder Colorado.

________________________________
From: Chris Dills <cddx@...>
To: "stmfc@..." <stmfc@...>
Sent: Sunday, July 21, 2013 1:42 PM
Subject: [STMFC] Re: G&F Hoppers

 
Charles,

Thanks for the info!

Question though, why would they be classified as 34' cars if the overall was 41'? I'm guessing that is over end sills? or would that be over coupler faces? That kind of cubic foot would seem to be correct for a 40'-41' foot car. Could you hazard a guess as to why they would reclassify them with 568 less cubic foot? You would have to remove about five and a half feet from the length of the car to decrease the cubic footage by that amount. Which I'm guessing they didn't really do. Any ideas?

THANKS!

-Chris Dills


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]




[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

This is just a guess, but the ACL and SAL both had open hoppers for carrying wet rock phosphate (and sand). They were rebuilt from regular hoppers with shortened interior and a platform near the top of each end for personnel to stand on. I wonder whether the G&F hoppers might have been of a similar design and use...

i am not certain but from the 'rails through the wiregrass' book and multiple photos that i have seen, i do not think the G&F had such traffic.

most of these hopper designs were for traffic in the bone valley of florida. the G&F didn't have any trackage there; had they done so, the SOU would not have procrastinated so much about buying it!

Chuck,

Do you have any photos of these cars? Would be interesting to see.

THANKS!

-Chris Dills

Regarding the 3 hoppers listed as #'s 12051-12053, the ORER's indicate that they are 50 ton cars with 2,755 cu. ft capacity. This seems like a lot of volume for only 50 tons. I can't seem to otherwise find a single example of such a car only rated for 50 tons. Would it have been possible for the G&F to "derate" the tonnage capacity of these cars?

Or do any of you have any other ideas, thoughts, or suggestions?

TAHNKS!

-Chris Dills

yes, cars could be derated by their owners.

Sorry but I was unable find a photo of the DL&W quads. As I recall they were pretty typical offset cars...

ala the one produced many years back in HO by Athearn
 
Chuck Y

 

________________________________
From: C.D. <cddx@...>
To: STMFC@...
Sent: Tuesday, August 6, 2013 12:51 PM
Subject: [STMFC] Re: G&F Hoppers

 
Chuck,

Do you have any photos of these cars? Would be interesting to see.

THANKS!

-Chris Dills

--- In mailto:STMFC%40yahoogroups.com, Charles R Yungkurth <drgwrail@...> wrote:

Pretty sure those G&H hopper cars were DL&W quqads. Lackawanna sold off all their fleet starting around in about 40 since industrial shipping of anthracite went down and retail coal dealers didn't want coal in large cars. In many places their coal trestles couldn't take the weight.
 
It could be that the railraod changed the angle of the slope shhets from the 30 degrees cound in coal cars to the 60 degrees found in cement cars since most comodities other than coal won't flow down a 30 degree slope. When EL converted cement cars to ballat cars thye increased the slope sheets even more and some of them had paltes added to cover the wider space between the top of the car end and the upper edge of the slope sheet. So  in essence, when coal hoppers were coverted to other uses the cubic fottage gnerally went down.
 
Chuck Yungkurth
Boulder Colorado.

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]