I expect coal shipments in gons were quite common into at least the 1920s. Although the term sounds a bit “toy train” to us nowadays, multiple railroads listed coal carrying (usually drop-bottom cars?) gondolas as “coal cars”. A quick look at the March, 1924 RER list cars by that description as CofG 14500-14600, then cars in series 15250-16049 and 17001-17200 as “coal gondolas”. The A&WP lists cars as “coal, solid or drop bottom” in seven or eight car series with a few “self clearing” coal (sic hoppers?) at the end of the RER entry. Examples of “coal cars” continue through the RER.

As most freight cars were more or less free running, Could we assume that gons loaded with coal would be common in interchange service?

On the Southern, early steel cars used for coal did not have particularly long service lives. Part of the reason may have been the first groups (incl the USRA examples) were about 20 years old during the depression and were simply not needed. Was steel produced in the teens and early twenties less able to deal with the corrosive effects of coal loads than more modern steel?

Ike

The C&O, D&RGW, CB&Q, NP, UP had fleets of gondolas in coal service beyond the
1960 cutoff of the STMFC list. I always thought preferences were based on the
versatility of the cars for other uses as well as coal. Even today 55+ years after
the STMFC era gondolas and hoppers are both in use in coal service.

Tim O'Connor

Bob Chapparo shared a cool image earlier of a tipple with four NYC Lines cars being loaded. Two were hoppers and two were gondolas.

The Pennsy built many of their GS gons with hopper bottom doors in the GSd class. Most were converted to flat bottom solid cars through the 1920s.

The Pennsy G22 class also had many cars built with clamshell hoppers.

There's lots of neat freight car stuff that happened in the first half of the years this list covers.

Eric Hansmann
El Paso, TX

Dick, I think you included ORE JENNIES as "hoppers" here. Technically they are
hopper cars, but I don't think they were used in coal service... I could be wrong.

If you don't count the jennies, there were nearly equal numbers in 1950 - 3,509
open hoppers [the majority of them Selective Service "MWB" cars like the ATLAS model
and a bunch of cars like the TRIX model], and 3,814 gondolas. But clearly the NP
greatly increased its fleet of "coal" hopper cars after 1940, I agree with that.

Tim O'Connor

Hi,

I will theorize that the destination had a lot to do with whether
the car used was a coal hopper or a gondola. Especially if the
receiver wasn't set up to unload by opening the doors below.

Also - don't forget that cement plants use coal for heating and
drying the product - so even if you aren't modeling a "coal road"
you can still have loads of coal that are going to a cement plant
(rather than a power plant).
And coal for heating - to small towns - would often be sold
or delivered to/from open 'bins'.
Neither of these are large volume users when compared to the
amount used for power generation or a steel mill - although the
amount of coal to a cement plant isn't "trivial".
And let's not forget the seasonal variations in the coal traffic.

- Jim B.

I have a shot of a P&LE 65 foot mill gondola loaded with coal. :-)

The CB&Q shipped coal from Southern Illinois mines in gondolas, mostly in captive service. Burlington Bulletin No. 35 titled “The Q in the Coal Fields” chronicles this traffic. During the late 19th and early 20 centuries, the Q owned coal mines in South Central Iowa as well. The Q had a number of open top coal pockets with multiples of 16 ft. square bins, and clamshell cranes were used to load the bins from gondolas. The coal pocket at Western Yard in South Chicago had six bins, and the coal pocket in Burlington had three bins. Burlington Bulletin No. 23 on Burlington, IA has a photos of the three bin coal pocket, including one photo of the crane being spotted by a K-4 ten wheeler. Black and white photos of Burlington yard show large piles of what appears to be coal and ballast near the service tracks, both shipped in drop bottom gondolas, and both transferred with a clamshell crane.

Nelson Moyer

From: STMFC@... [mailto:STMFC@...]
Sent: Thursday, October 13, 2016 2:20 PM
To: STMFC@...
Subject: Re: [STMFC] Re: gons containing coal


In the Northern Pacific files, in the President's Subject Files, the Chief Engineering Files and the Mechanical Department files are found a report, Report of Committee on Open Top Dump Cars, this report commissioned in 1929, updated in 1935, and then again 1939 - listed as the coal traffic between the Twin Ports and the Twin Cities to be the #1 determinant in open top car purchases on the NP.
Given the time that most cars remain in service, the 1939 update would pretty much cover this sites time frame.

To answer another post, No Tim, I did not confuse the Ore cars with the others. I believe you are wrong there. Of course, you are welcome to back your assertion with source data.

Of Jim Betz,
Jim - If you are a member of the GNRHS (I believe you are) please check GNRHS reference sheet 248 of December 1996. It (in a very nice article by Martin Evoy III) does list operations and preferences) so no need to theorize. There is plenty of factual data available for those that care to research.

In the article, He (Martin) does list the hand unloading that Dennis Storzek references in a more current post.

I also have (copies of letters) letters from the NP's General Managers office to shipping agents in Duluth/Superior regarding coal loads that were refused when they came in the wrong type of car, and these are some rather strongly worded letters as railroaders tend to speak. Yes, the consignee was free to specify the car type.

We seem to cover this topic of coal and gons and hoppers every several years. Or like September 2015 - Seasonal coal loadings was the topic.

Ben Hom (I believe it was) commented once about - Doesn't anyone check the files?

Of clamshell bucket unloading of gons, see in the Photo area my postings from April 9. 2008 - Small Town Coal Operations. There is a crane with clamshell unloading an NP composite gon, among the photos. Date of photos is early 1930's.

Of other coal postings - see postings 111293, 65630, and 65627.

Jim Dick - St. Paul