Howdy,I'm looking for an answer to question about coal hoppers in the 1970's in the US. What was the primary ones used, 70 tonners? Bethgon or quad?Id appreciate any answers, ya'll have a good day.
I"m not an expert, but from what I recall I would say 70 and up. Tub gons came later as did high use of aluminum.
You could check photos on various sites for roads with high coal traffic in the 70s such as Clinchfield. UP and BN too, several others.
Richard
In the 1970's most hoppers were conventional 70-100 ton triples or quads. Unit coal trains were just beginning and the cars were mostly steel rotary dump cars. Aluminum rotaries were very rare. Many of the designs were unique to that era since in the 1970's unit coal trains were just being marketed.
Dave H. Painted side goes up. My website : wnbranch.com
I think the answer is "it depends". I know enough to be dangerous, but for example D&RGW used mainly a huge fleet of 100 ton Bethlehem quad hoppers, as apparently did many western railroads. Eastern railroads seemed to favor 3-bay hoppers at that time. It also had to do with how the cars were loaded and emptied.. if facilities had rotary dumping units, bathtub gons or hi-side gondola's were used - many customers served by the D&RGW used these kinds of rotary dump gondola's. For example Kaiser Steel in California got their coal from the D&RGW and used the Thrall "Coal Liner" gondola's. A power plant in Indiana used the NORX Thrall hi-side gones - also originating on the D&RGW.
So if you are looking for what you would like to buy and model a coal train, and copy real life, additional information would be helpful.
Rio Grande. The Action Road - Focus 1977-1983
riogrande5761So if you are looking for what you would like to buy and model a coal train, and copy real life, additional information would be helpful.
More specifically, what railroad are you modeling? I model Conrail in about 1983. At that time they were primarily using 3 bay 70 and 100 ton hoppers that were inherited from predessor railroad PC, which was using hoppers from its predecessor railroads PRR, NYC, EL, and Reading. I think it would have been very unusual to see any hoppers from other roads mixed in.
In the late 1980's I saw a solid train of N&W conventional hoppers hauling coal to the steel mill in Provo, UT running on the DRGW. Back in the late 1970's I also saw lots of CSX/B&O conventional hoppers on CR routes in SE Pennsylvania (particularly the ex-RDG routes).
maxmanriogrande5761 So if you are looking for what you would like to buy and model a coal train, and copy real life, additional information would be helpful. More specifically, what railroad are you modeling?
Im modeling my own little shortline in the early to mid 80's. Im trying to make it look as era specific as possible. My line serves a blast furnace/steel mill, and Im wanting to use some heavy duty hoppersThank yall for all the quick replies and the info.