Question about hoppers and war hoppers

[Birds]

I was doing some reading on coal hopper history but have some questions and thought I might test the forum's collective train knowledge.

1) I can't find much on the "war time" hoppers - hoppers with composite sides and steel outside bracing. Does anyone know if these were common during the 1940's, and were they still in use a couple years after the war?

2) In coal country, when a coal train was delivering it's load to a destination (such as a port) would it primarily consist of hoppers from one company, or would a consist have had hoppers from different companies to make sure that supplies were being moved.

As an example:
Would a Norfolk & Western consist have had C&O or Virginian hoppers mixed in with it, or would it all be Norfolk & Wester hoppers?

Thanks,
Birds

[phillyreading]

For information on war time hoppers have you tried either a train musuem or a library or
well stocked book store?
Locally I see many hoppers from different roadnames hauling sand for FEC to cement plants, three bay 100 ton hoppers and quad hoppers(don't know the tonnage).
From what I know about railroads it was common practice to use what was at hand unless the car was needed some where else like a refridgerater car. The Pennsylvania Railroad even borrowed or leased locomotive power from other railroads to move their frieght, one railroad that leased locomotive power to the Pennsy in the late 50's was Reading Lines.
Lee F. in West Palm Beach FL

[locomutt]

QUOTE: Originally posted by Birds

I was doing some reading on coal hopper history but have some questions and thought I might test the forum's collective train knowledge.

1) I can't find much on the "war time" hoppers - hoppers with composite sides and steel outside bracing. Does anyone know if these were common during the 1940's, and were they still in use a couple years after the war?

2) In coal country, when a coal train was delivering it's load to a destination (such as a port) would it primarily consist of hoppers from one company, or would a consist have had hoppers from different companies to make sure that supplies were being moved.

As an example:
Would a Norfolk & Western consist have had C&O or Virginian hoppers mixed in with it, or would it all be Norfolk & Wester hoppers?

Thanks,
Birds

"Composite" cars were quite common into the '50s and 60s;you might have
actually seen them around in even later years as m of w equipment. (ie. ballast cars)

Generally speaking,if a railroad was taking a loaded "coal train" to their
export piers,they pretty well would have been a "unit train" of that road's
hoppers.Roads like the C & O,N & W,PRR;had extremely large fleets
of hopper cars,especially to serve "on line" mines. there were also several
other coal companies that had their own fleet of cars,(Berwind comes to mind)
that also operated pretty much in the "block" or "unit" train service also.

In most cases,if you saw several hopper cars with various road names on
them in a train;more than likely,they would be just car loads going to smaller
businesses;possibly a manufacturer,power plant/steam plant,etc.

[Anonymous]

Composite hoppers were the result of conserving all steel for MFG. OF THINGS LIKE tANKS,Landing Barges and various other military equiptment. Many of those composite cars were built at Johnstown Pa. Car shops,a division of Bethlehem Steel Corp. Being in the middle of the coal mining regions of appillachia they were well situated for building coal hopper cars.
The Cambria and Indiana Railroad being one of the principle origin of coal unit trains. Many coal trains were loaded out to coal supply depots for destinations at Power plants, where they would stockhouse trains for emptying at will to many various companys(customers) This practice netted very nice revenue for the car owners in demurrage fees. Cambria & Indiana made more money on demurrafe than anything else. They were a Sister company of Berwind. Many of the Joint coal companies were named after the last names of the owners The two big names were Coleman and Weaver. A few examples of Town names or Mining company names Were the towns of Colver named avter the first three letters of Coleman and the last threee letters of Weaver.
They wouold then reverse tham i.e. Berwind was the reverse of Windber, one of the coal company towns. There was Colver and Revcloc, Manver after the last letters in their last names. I could go on and on but I think you get the drift.
Berwind coal company(Actually Berwind-White Coal Company had a huge inventory of Hoppers as did The Camria & Indiana RR Co, and the PRR all
built by Bethlehem Steel at Johnstown Car shops. The composites were also built there during WWII, Unit trains were a post war development. Most coal drags were mixtures of road names. One of our favorite childhood games was
counting how many cars of different road names made up a drag. In those days C&IRR( Cambria and Indiana) was a very common winner as they had one of if not the largest fleet of Coal Hoppers in service.
Don't want to get too windy hers so I hope I have answered your questions.
Walt Cameron
P.S. My father was employed by the C & I RR and if you visit My Website at
westernhobbycraft.com you can link to the C&I RR site and learn many interesting facts about the Coal hauling Railroad business.,

[lionelsoni]

Actually, very many of the landing craft were wooden, like the Higgins boat:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LCVP

[Anonymous]

The landing craft that were wood were not made from the steel trhat would have been use in Hopper cars, so what is your point? I worken in a factory that built LCM (Landing Craft Mechanized) and we built many of them. They also had many other(LST-LCT and on and on) What do wooden craft have to do with the reason for composite Hopper Cars?
Walt Cameron

[Birds]

Thank you all for the replies. They have answered my questions.

Newonhere, I really appreciate your detailed reply as well as the link to the web site on the history of the C&I RR.

It is always a pleasure to read first hand accounts.

Birds

[lionelsoni]

Walt, my point was that the need to conserve steel reached ironically even to many of the landing craft that, like hopper cars, might have been made from steel had it not been needed for larger vessels, even of their own kind, and, as you say, "various other military equipment".

A couple of other examples of steel conservation are Howard Hughes's "Spruce Goose" (which turned out to be a wasted effort) and the last five Big Boys, which were somewhat heavier than their predecessors due to restrictions on the available metal. Which brings the topic back to trains.