i'm modeling the Philly and Reading, which was primarily a coal company and of course had coal trains composed entirely of Reading hopper cars.
But i've seen pictures of Pennsylvania coal cars in Reading trains and I've seen a lone coal hopper in freight trains composed mostly of box cars.
I guess I can understand that single car loads are routed to a coal dealer and would be treated as just another car in a freight. It's presumably cut from cars in a coal yard and ultimately returned to a coal yard. But I assume hoppers wouldn't be part of a mixed freight in the mine areas. ?
Since the Reading hauled antracite coal, I can understand the need to ship single car antracite coal using Reading hoppers to customers on non-Reading railroads. And likewise, non-Reading hopper cars would bring bituminous coal from outside the Reading to customers served by the Reading. (Of course there are many different types of coal).
Would a non-Reading hopper originally used to bring bitminous coal to a Reading customer be brought to a mine on the Reading to return a load of antracite coal to a customer on that non-Reading railroad?
Or would the empty non-Reading hopper always be routed back to its home railroad MTY?
trying to justify the few non-Reading hopper cars on my layout
greg - Philadelphia & Reading / Reading
ndbprrThe compensation rules for all cars are identical as far as I know and complex
would this have been true in the P&R days, pre-1930?
There are also car service bulletins in additon to the normal rules that may require cars to be returned unloaded. I know the N&W had a lot of those out. The RDG had a lot of business with the B&O so seeing B&O coal cars in trains of bitumonous would not be unusual. The RDG and CNJ were also very close. not saying that it didn't happen, but I can't recall seeing non-RDG hoppers being loaded at RDG mines or in solid RDG coal trains.
Dave H. Painted side goes up. My website : wnbranch.com
I know most railroads wanted their empty hoppers return as fast as possible for their customers the reason is some railroads didn't have a large fleet of hopper cars.
NYC would return N&W hoppers empty as would the C&O.These was 150-220 car hopper trains.
As far as single loads of coal or stone I suspect these cars was handle like any other car in interchange.
A example" When empty return to N&W Bellevue,Oh via reverse route".
Larry
Conductor.
Summerset Ry.
"Stay Alert, Don't get hurt Safety First!"
David Morgan published an article in Trains describing the use of B&O hoppers on a multi-railroad routing that had them loaded with import iron ore at Baltimore or Philadelphia, then move west to steel mills in the Johnstown/Pittsburgh area, then deadhead (or possibly carry Lake-bound bituminous coal) to Erie, PA, then carry Mesabi iron ore to Bethlehem, PA via PRR/LV, then deadhead to Philadelphia or Baltimore to repeat the cycle.
B&O hoppers also carried bituminous coal from West Virginia and Western PA to industrial customers in the Northeast via B&O/WM to Harrisburg, and RDG beyond.
Individual cars might come to smaller dealers for home heat and other smaller customers located on foreign roads.
Then there is the question of "stray" cars. According to the rules, this is supposed to happen rarely or never, but photos and existing wheel reports indicate that it was a pretty common thing. How else do we explain a MILW hopper hauling coal out of Midvale, WV on the Middle Fork RR, or an Erie hopper in the same service, as shown in an old issue of Model Trains Magazine? I've also seen photos that showed Erie hoppers on B&O trains running from the WV bituminous coal fields to the Lake Erie port of Lorain. Erie didn't have customers at either end of that run, and those trains didn't run on Erie tracks.
In sum, most coal cars tended to stay in their home territory, or on designated, pre-arranged routings that optimized their utilization, and these routings sometimes involved several railroads. Foreign cars were seen, often in unexpected locations. Most often, these foreign cars were from nearby roads, although there were exceptions.
Very specialized loads, such as metallurgical Anthracite, might even be carried to the US west coast in an Eastern hopper, although this was probably not a frequent occurrence.
Tom
so a Reading hopper carrying antracite might appear at a coal dealer on a railroad served by the Pennsylvania RR, but a Reading hopper wouldn't be at a mine on the PRR ?
Would an MTY Reading hopper be on a train of PRR hoppers carrying bituminous coal to a destination on the Reading?
Any of those things could happen, including the RDG hopper at a mine tipple on the PRR. In most cases, most of the hoppers being loaded at that tipple would be PRR, but not necessarily all of them. That's what I meant when I mentioned stray cars, above. A hopper from a distant RR like the Santa Fe or UP would be much, much less likely.
If there was a load going to the "foreign" line who owned the hopper, the use of the non Reading hopper would be justified as it would free Reading hoppers for other loads. Also when coal traffic was heavy enough to cause car shortages a foreign car might be used for traffic that would be entirely on the Reading.
The Reading had an interesting operating rule. If a general merchandise train was made up and was say 5000 tons but the locomotive could haul 6000 tons on that route, then 1000 tons of coal headed the same direction was tacked on the end of the freight. And it didn't matter if it was anthracite or bituminous, just so it was headed the same way.
BRAKIE I NYC would return N&W hoppers empty as would the C&O.These was 150-220 car hopper trains. know most railroads wanted their empty hoppers return as fast as possible for their customers the reason is some railroads didn't have a large fleet of hopper cars.
I
know most railroads wanted their empty hoppers return as fast as possible for their customers the reason is some railroads didn't have a large fleet of hopper cars.
For your N&W operation, I think the best approach is to consult photos or (if you can find them) wheel reports. Most of the N&W photos I have seen tend to show pure N&W coal car consists, although a VGN car might show up now and then. I'm sure foreign hoppers did show up, but without evidence to the contrary I'd say they were pretty rare. Several years ago the N&W Historical Society's magazine, "The Arrow", published a series of 3 articles on the N&W's hopper car fleet and the proportional numbers of cars in each class.
In the steam era, PRR had a substantial financial interest in N&W, and much N&W coal found its way to the PRR's Sandusky, Ohio, coal pier. That could give you some justification for an occasional PRR H21a. The other suggestions are more tenuous. The SOO suggestion is highly suspect.
In the mid to late 1950s, the PRR had a serious shortage of its own hoppers and gained the use of hoppers from neighboring railroads, paying per diem for their use. Take a good look at photos of late PRR steam, and you'll see lots of WM, Reading, B&O, etc hoppers. I've heard at various times that it was an easy matter for railroads with a shortage to "capture" empties from other roads and simply pay per diem for their use.