Gidday, Whilst making my removable coal loads I got to thinking. ( A dangerous thing in my case ).
Once upon a time I saw a prototype photo,in a model railroad magazine of a coal hopper car that was, if my memory serves correctly and that can be a debatable point, back loading ore. It appeared to be about half full which is understandable due to the weight of the ore and in the U.S north east.
This practice does, or did, not appear to be common, but how often did it happen, and where???
Thanks,
Cheers, the Bear.
"One difference between pessimists and optimists is that while pessimists are more often right, optimists have far more fun."
NS and CSX runs several ore trains using hopper cars so,its very common today.
Larry
Conductor.
Summerset Ry.
"Stay Alert, Don't get hurt Safety First!"
It happened all over mainly centered on the Great Lakes area, iron ore would be shipped from the ports on Lake Erie to the steel companies in Pittsburgh, PA, Middletown, OH and elsewhere. On the PRR they would be shipped in GLa and H21 Hoppers with a little pile over each bolster so as not to break the frame of the car. Every once in a while they would press a gondola into service loaded the same way. Other railroads were operated the same way. Those cars then would head to the coal fields and head back to the lakes to load the lake boats with coal. The PRR never owned Ore Cars until the G38's and G39's of the late 50's and they were purchased to load Brazilian Ore in Philadelphia and shipped to East Coast Iron works.
The Reading Railroad Hopper cars were mainly purchased for the loading ore and not coal and serviced the Bethlehem Steel complex in Bethlehem, PA from various sources.
Rick J
Rule 1: This is my railroad.
Rule 2: I make the rules.
Rule 3: Illuminating discussion of prototype history, equipment and operating practices is always welcome, but in the event of visitor-perceived anacronisms, detail descrepancies or operating errors, consult RULE 1!
Some railoads painted a white line on the sides of the cars to remind loaders not to overload the car when carrying ore. Ore could only be loaded to the line.
The Reading used regular hoppers to ship ore all the time. The hoppers dedicated to ore service would have orange panels painted at one end of each side.
Reading also used regular hoppers to ship sand and sugar. Those hoppers had white panels and blue panels respectively. The hoppers used to ship sugar had drop in lids with hatches made so that the sugar would be protected from weather. The lids on the sugar cars could be simply lifted out to use the car for coal if no sugar loads were expected for a while.
Gidday All, Larry, Rick J, nedthomas, and DS4-4-1000 thank you all for your replies, appreciate them and also your time.
Bear.
Check this out. Cleveland's whiskey island had Hullet ore unloaders. They either stockpiled or filled hopper cars. This photo has quite a few H21a or f hoppers and a couple of GLA hoppers. Being loaded under the Hullets.
http://www.shorpy.com/node/2799
These are all coal hoppers. At one time the PRR had 30,000+ H21 class hoppers. They had more coal hoppers than most roads had cars of all types. Most of the cars in the picture would have brought a load of coal or coke and either dumped the load at Whiskey or Toledo or some other lake front coal transfer facility before back hauling ore to the south or east.
Pete
I pray every day I break even, Cause I can really use the money!
I started with nothing and still have most of it left!
Gidday Pete, what a cracker of a photo!! I had showed a couple of the guys, who where interested, at the local club how I was making the removable coal loads. The ensuing discussion got round to weathering and how much damage a hopper received whilst in service. Not only does the photo give the colour of the ore, but helps with those questions as well.
I now have more projects to get on with , though I think that I will be modelling the Hullet Loader off the layout.
Thanks very much,
Bear,
Here's some more:
http://trn.trains.com/~/media/Files/PDF/Web%20Exclusives/TRPDF057.ashx
Check out the articles by Mark Hemphill on taconite and other backhauls out West, plus there's a lot more on ore and steel ops in this pdf package, apparently free from our hosts at Kalmbach.
Mike Lehman
Urbana, IL
Gidday Mike , thanks for this link, a goodly amount of information to digest.
I guess as the OP I can go off topic .It always amazes me over the years the number of complaints that "insert your own title" magazine is going down hill because it doesn't have any content that interests me. I have personally thought that those poor persons must have a really narrow interest as I have always managed to find something that has been of interest to me, the case in point in your link is the article on "Rio Grande Commodities".While my initial question was , of course regarding ore transportation in coal hoppers, I have planned that cement is going to be a major industry on my fictitious NE railroad and while I in my research found that Fly Ash was an ingredient in cement, here unlooked for, in this article is why and how it was shipped.
This only serves as conformation why this hobby is so great, a major factor being the helpful people I get to "meet".
Thanks again guys.
The Bessemer & Lake Erie was another railroad that used regular hopper cars to haul iron ore from the Great Lakes to steel mills.
Gidday and thanks Stix.
Hey Guys
I don't want to be accused of abusing a dead horse here but, I was just reading my book on freight service on the Missouri Pacific Lines. This book showed 100 ton hopper cars loaded with the iron pellets from the Pea Ridge Mine heaped over the trucks with the center divider showing. The mounds of pellets are just slightly higher than the divider. Sorry I can't show a picture. My scanner won't scan and send a file to my computer for some reason.
Lee
yankee flyer Hey Guys I don't want to be accused of abusing a dead horse here but............. Lee
I don't want to be accused of abusing a dead horse here but.............
Gidday Lee, Any relevant information gratefully received. Have one on me.
Thanks and Cheers, the Bear.
AH HA
It was not the scanner but the scanner operator that was at fault. Just as a learning exercize, here is the picture I should have been able to post before.
Enjoy
Thanks for this post. I'm in the process of building a layout with an Eastern PA steel mill served by the Reading, Lehigh Valley, and PRR and this information was quite helpful.
DS4-4-1000The Reading used regular hoppers to ship ore all the time. The hoppers dedicated to ore service would have orange panels painted at one end of each side.
They did use regular hoppers, plus some of the orange ones were converted from rib sided quads into gons, by removing the hopper doors and installing a floor in the bottom of the hopper to create a 70 ton, high side gon. The problem was that the hoppers that were the source material were pretty worn out to begin with and there were numerous floor and side sheet failures and Bethlehem Steel was always complaining about car supply. The RCT&HS had a story about them a year or so ago.
Dave H. Painted side goes up. My website : wnbranch.com
wjstix The Bessemer & Lake Erie was another railroad that used regular hopper cars to haul iron ore from the Great Lakes to steel mills.
Yes, the B&LE hauled a lot of iron ore between Lake Erie ports and the steel mills in the Pittsburgh area, and they never owned a car that could be described as an ore car until they bought 800 ore jimmies in 1952-3. In 1948, they had 500 USRA 50 ton twin hoppers (43501-44000) and 1,250 77 ton triple offset cars (50001-50750 and 76001-76500), and 1670 assorted smaller and older hoppers (41501-43500, 44001-44021, and 45001-45100). But the lion's share of the Bessemer's hopper fleet in that year was a group of almost 5,925 one hundred ton triple offsets. To put this in perspective, a modeler who wants to represent the B&LE in 1948 should have 2 USRA twins, seven odd twins, five 77 Ton triples, and 24 one hundred Ton triples. Five hundred more 100 tonners were added in 1952, so the 1953 roster should be 2, 7, 5, 26, and three ore jimmies (assuming no retirements, which I have not checked).
In addition to iron ore, the Bessemer hopper cars were commonly seen hauling coal, coke, and limestone. We used to see them by the score on the B&O, hauling coke to Republic Steel in Cleveland, and iron ore back from Cleveland to the Pittsburgh area.
The Bessemer's 100 Ton cars were unique, with additional interior side stakes betrayed by their visible ends at the top of the sides. They also had unusual clasp brakes supported by projections on the ends of the trucks, much like those seen on Buckeye six wheel trucks. The only correct model I know of is the old Ulrich triple, but I don't know a source for the trucks. Unfortunately, the Ulrich triple weighs a ton. It would be great if somebody could resurrect the old Ulrich dies and cast the cars in a lighter material. I'd buy a bunch. Better yet, all-new tooling with finer rivet detail. .
B&O was another road that hauled a lot of iron ore in hopper cars, but never owned an ore jimmy.
Just a "p.s.", I apparently missed the first time that the car pictured in the original post was a New York Central car. NYC would be another railroad that regularly hauled iron ore in hopper cars as pictured.
I should have caught that the first time.
Back in the 1990's there was a move were taconite was loaded in hoppers in Michigan, the ore was hauled to Provo, UT unloaded at the CFI plant there, cleaned and then loaded with coal at the Utah mines and the coal trains wwere sent back to utilities in the east. The trains I saw moving were all NS hoppers.
The cars had to be cleaned because the coal was crushed at the power plant and blown into the furnaces, if there was a taconite pellet in the mix it might not crush. That could result in some of the coal being bigger chucks, affecting the ash and blocking the grates reducing the efficiency of the burners.
Athearn has a roller bearing version of the B&LE truck with the "horns" for the clasp type brakes under their 26 foot Southern Pacific high side ore car in HO.