What car type was used for bulk commodity shipments prior to the two bay covered hopper? Were box cars with grain doors the next type back historically? I am looking at the period prior to 1940. What was used to ship cement prior to the covered hopper? Thanks.
Jim - Preserving the history of the NKP Cloverleaf first subdivision.
My guess is that cement would be in bags loaded into boxcars. Labor intensive, but labor was cheap in those days.
John
Altho' DEFINITELY a one-of-a-kind, covered hoppers were around by 1919.http://www8.cpr.ca/cms/English/General+Public/Heritage/Photo+Gallery/Rolling+Stock/Profiles/A201340.htmMust have been a heavy car for it's day when laded.Thank You.
tichy offers a kit for a box car with roof hatches for cement loading. according to their web site, it was converted in 1934.
grizlump
As noted, pretty-well all bulk commodities that needed protection from the weather moved in boxcars. In 1911-12, the CPR built a couple of experimental 36' Dominion/Fowler boxcars fitted with drop doors in their floors, following them up with 200 similar cars in 1913. That covered hopper shown in Kootenay Central's link was rostered with their boxcars and labelled as a "Battleship Grain Car". Canadian Pacific built another 3500 40' boxcars in the '20s, all equipped with drop doors in the floors, mostly for grain service.
While I use lots of covered hoppers on my late '30s layout, I also have a few 36' Fowler boxcars that have been modified with roof hatches and longitudinal underfloor hoppers.
These scratchbuilt cars were inspired by those CPR cars, and are used in captive service for a single commodity.
Wayne
There were covered hoppers before the PS2. Covered hoppers existed in 1940 but they were a pretty new form of car, I think first used for cement (which needed to be kept dry of course). Generally flour and grain etc. wouldn't start using covered hoppers until later. The c.1954 Airslide had a way to blow air in to help move flour out the bottom hoppers. Before that, it would have been transported in sacks in boxcars. As noted, grain boxcars (both regular boxcars with added grain doors, and boxcars specifically built with small doors for loading bulk grain) were very common into the 1970's when the 55' covered hopper finally became the most common shipping method. I'm sure on some lightly-laid branchlines 40' boxcars of grain could be seen into the 1980's...I seem to remember seeing boxcars in use for grain at that time up in Canada (Thunder Bay).
PS2 and ACF were some of the first "standardized" covered hopper designs, IIRC.
Prior to that some roads had proprietary versions, with the PRR H30 (and N&W cousin) as well as the Erie Dunmore and NYC Despatch being fairly well documented examples.
These were developed fairly late into the standardization period (mid 1040's?).
This makes modeling covered hoppers in the early transition era somewhat difficult.
In HO, Funaro & Camerlengo makes kits for all 3 (4) mentioned above, plus a few more.
Be warned that because of the ends and ladders, these are some of the most challenging kits to assemble.
Thanks everyone. I found a covered hopper on F&C built by the B&O in 1938 to the "covered wagon" design. I guess it would be correct to use two bay covered hoppers for bulk cargo on a ca.1936 to ca.1940 layout. I am working on a layout design for the Nickel Plate in the downtown Toledo, OH warehouse district and am using the Sanborn fire insurance maps from 1936 and the NKP valuation drawings from 1940 for the layout design.