Kind of the opposite of coal (as far as color), but the DMIR / CN sometimes uses empty taconite ore cars heading north to backhaul limestone to the taconite plants. It's used in making taconite pellets.
Spoke to a couple of rail photographers who covered the Pennsy and PC during the use of the Ore Jennies and they were usually delivered empty back to Whiskey Island for loading, any other use would be an unusual occurence.
Rick Jesionowski
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The SP used ore jennies to haul aggregates (sand and gravel). In Houston we had hopper trains, gon trains and OJ's (ore jennies). The ore jennies were unloaded with a back hoe so no need to have bottom dumps (so were the gons).
Dave H. Painted side goes up. My website : wnbranch.com
DM&IR on occassion used ore cars for coal or ballast, never heard of PRR doing it. It made sense for PRR or other eastern roads to use hopper cars to haul coal one way and ore the other, as the cars could be full of coal one way and about half-full of iron ore the other (since iron ore is so much denser than coal). An ore jenny could carry the same amount of ore as a regular hopper car could, but could only carry about half the coal due to their diminutive size.
No too small in cu ft to be usefull in hauling coal. Also no bottom doors for unloading . About the only time I saw jennies being used for something other than ore was in the Conrail era. They did use some temporarily when ore traffic was slow to haul steel coils. --- Ken
I know the PRR made coal hoppers do double duty hauling coal to Cleveland and ore to the Ohio River valley. Did they do the same with ore Jennie's?
Modeling the Cleveland and Pittsburgh during the PennCentral era starting on the Cleveland lakefront and ending in Mingo junction