azrailSanta Fe and SP also preferred drop bottom gons over hoppers, they could be used for other purposes by keeping the bottom shut.
This brings up a point that I don't think has been mentioned. There really isn't an east-west split on hopper color, but there is a definate E-W split on what types of cars were used. The western roads tending to use drop bottom gons and the eastern roads tending to use hoppers. If you are modeling a coal train with the SP, ATSF, UP or DRGW before the 1960's, most likely it will be a train of drop bottom GS gons (Caswell gons on the ATSF). If you are modeling the PRR, RDG, B&O, N&W then it will be hopper cars.
Dave H. Painted side goes up. My website : wnbranch.com
kasskaboose Had my daughter been in charge, all of the cars would be pink or purple.
In 1980 I was in Dallas, TX and watched a Rock Island train pull past me, it had 3 baby blue GP's on the head end followed by a string of pink covered hoppers. Right out of a Lionel catalog!
Santa Fe and SP also preferred drop bottom gons over hoppers, they could be used for other purposes by keeping the bottom shut.
kasskaboose Thanks for clarifying the colors. Had my daughter been in charge, all of the cars would be pink or purple. This reminds me that I need to get her some pink HO scale hoppers!
Thanks for clarifying the colors. Had my daughter been in charge, all of the cars would be pink or purple. This reminds me that I need to get her some pink HO scale hoppers!
I know I've got mine:
Ed
riogrande5761 Looks like another OP gone MIA.
Looks like another OP gone MIA.
Sorry! I didn’t realize I hadn’t replied to all you guys! I really appreciate the responses. Lots of good info. Thanks again.
If coal hoppers tended to be painted black because of the dust/filth released by their loads, we might figure that the western roads might not be so coal specific with their hoppers (if their color choices weren't black).
GN, for example, didn't paint their hoppers black (except for the last ones--hmm..). And they certainly weren't big on hauling coal (except for the last ones--?????).
NP's hoppers and GS (coal) gons were painted black. And NP was a big (for the west) coal hauler. Their flats, too, though they were seldom used to haul coal.
Of course, moderating that reasoning would be the views of management. Including such things as: "We painted hoppers black on the (fill in appropriate eastern road) when I ran it, so we'll damn well paint (fill in appropriate western road) black too."
Even UP changed their hopper color from red-brown to black after someone noticed an increase in hoppers being assigned to coal hauling. It only took, what, 30 years?
Rio Grande. The Action Road - Focus 1977-1983
The only one I've ever heard was that the Bessemer and Lake Erie favored brown equipment because the iron ore and coal dust turned everything that color anyhow dust.
kasskaboose Union Pacific 428 Hi all, I know that as a “general” rule eastern railroads used black hoppers for hauling coal and other products, and western railroads were more apt to use brown hoppers or gondolas. But were black hoppers ever used out west by anyone? I am planning a freelanced western mining/quarrying shortline layout as a secondary modeling interest and have a number of black coal hoppers on hand that I’m wondering if I could use. Thanks Can someone kindly explain how/why certain color of hoppers were used in specific areas of the country? Does the color relate to the type of coal? I model N&W in the early 1980s and while I have mostly black coal hoppers, I also have some N&W brown coal hoppers. Thanks!
Union Pacific 428 Hi all, I know that as a “general” rule eastern railroads used black hoppers for hauling coal and other products, and western railroads were more apt to use brown hoppers or gondolas. But were black hoppers ever used out west by anyone? I am planning a freelanced western mining/quarrying shortline layout as a secondary modeling interest and have a number of black coal hoppers on hand that I’m wondering if I could use. Thanks
Hi all,
I know that as a “general” rule eastern railroads used black hoppers for hauling coal and other products, and western railroads were more apt to use brown hoppers or gondolas. But were black hoppers ever used out west by anyone? I am planning a freelanced western mining/quarrying shortline layout as a secondary modeling interest and have a number of black coal hoppers on hand that I’m wondering if I could use. Thanks
As discussed above, it has nothing to do with either, it's just a choice like picking the color of your new car, except railroads pick colors for easy maintenance.
Sheldon
As you said, my freight train with those two sets of hoppers will stay grouped together until reaching Los Angeles. That's when my F7 A-B-A set/caboose comes off and entire 27 car train will be broken up and the cars will be sorted into thier correct tracks based on where they're supposed to go.
So my four hoppers could head up north to Seattle on the UP, or south to Texas on the SP.
ATSFGuy A question I'd like to ask, In my transition era freight train, which has 26/27 cars, I have four 34' hoppers coal grouped together, the first two are brown and lettered for SF and PRR and are placed near the front. The second four are black and lettered for B&O and C&O and are placed near the back. I could be handling hoppers cars coming from the northeast heading to Los Angeles. Is my operation prototypical?
A question I'd like to ask,
In my transition era freight train, which has 26/27 cars, I have four 34' hoppers coal grouped together, the first two are brown and lettered for SF and PRR and are placed near the front. The second four are black and lettered for B&O and C&O and are placed near the back.
I could be handling hoppers cars coming from the northeast heading to Los Angeles.
Is my operation prototypical?
I'm missing how 4 hoppers could be "grouped together", but two are near the front of the train, and two are near the back of the train.
Yes, hoppers did traverse the continent.
I can't prove it, but I don't see why not.
While there is lots of coal out west as well, there are different types of coal, and perhaps there were buyers of eastern anthracite out west.
Note that placement in the train would obviously have absolutely nothing to do with colour.
Nor are they really sorted by the reporting marks/lettering - trains are organized by destination, with blocks of cars traveling together for the same destination, or at least the next major point where they'll be further re-sorted for further routes.
So the coal hoppers wouldn't necessarily even be grouped together unless they all came from the same place and are heading to the same place. If they didn't all come from the same origin, it would only be luck that gets them grouped together. And if they did all come from the same place, but aren't going to the same destination, they might stay together for a while but eventually will obviously be separated into different blocks.
Chris van der Heide
My Algoma Central Railway Modeling Blog
The western road perhaps most associated with coal was the D&RGW, and their standard gauge coal hoppers were black. Arrowhead and ExactRail have great models of Rio Grande hoppers.
DSC03163 by wp8thsub, on Flickr
DSC03163
The UP and D&RGW both made extensiuve use of drop-bottom gons for coal before hoppers and rotary dump gons became ubiquitous. Unlike the car color, that WAS a regional difference compared to eastern roads that adopted hoppers much earlier. The D&RGW narrow gauge didn't use hoppers for coal, and their gons were painted oxide, unlike the black standard gauge cars.
Rob Spangler
The WESTERN MARYAND painted most hoppers red oxide (brown), while the other three big coal haulers in that region chose black, N&W, C&O and B&O.
GN had hoppers in mineral red, vermilion, and black. Black general went on the cars from the Big Sky Blue era.
Burlington also had some black hoppers. They, too, tended to be from the pre-BN era. Burlington also had Chinese Red hoppers. And probably mineral red, though I can't say for sure.
I think NP was always black.
WP had hoppers in black and in freight car red.
SP&S had 25 hoppers. All were mineral red.
NittanyLion I've never seen anything that really suggested it either. PRR had plenty of red ones, which turned into Conrail brown, for instance.
I've never seen anything that really suggested it either. PRR had plenty of red ones, which turned into Conrail brown, for instance.
Amtrak America, 1971-Present.
No general rule I've ever seen.
Was D&RGW a western railroad? I always thought it was, and AFAIK, most if not all of their coal cars numbering in the many thousands were black.
3-bay D&RGW coal cars
4-bay D&RGW coal cars
UP had brown and black (page through here and you'll see both).
https://www.railcarphotos.com/Search.php?SearchReportingMark=UP&SearchEquipTypeID=86&Search=Search&PageNumber=7
ATSF had mostly brown IIRC.
BN black.
NP black.
Utah Rwy PS3's were black.
Bottom line, it's your RR, choose what floats your boat.
Not sure I've ever heard of that "east-west" split before. Northern Pacific and Burlington Northern both used black hopper cars for coal, as did Minneapolis & St.Louis (not sure if you consider them western?). I think it was a railroad by railroad deal, not a conscious decision that a group of eastern or western railroads made to only use a certain color on one side of the country.
How much coal was mined in the location you model in your era? Coal from the east and midwest (southern Illinois, western Kentucy) made it all over North America. The CB&Q moved coal from the mines in southern Illinois pretty far west in many cases for it's own use. They used brown hoppers and gons. The IC shipped coal from it's service area all over North America and they used both brown and black hoppers and gons. Then there was specialty coal shipped from the east. I don't know if any of your industries would use the specialty coal, but I can see opportunities to use black hoppers.