what are gondola's used for

[ericmanke]

The Southern Pacific use high sided Gons for Sugar beets, and many roads had big highside gons for woodchips. Up here in Wisconsin, we've been using gons to transport pulpwood logs for years.

E

[Anonymous]

They also get scrapped

http://www.rrpicturearchives.net/showPicture.aspx?id=179211

or converted to other uses

http://www.rrpicturearchives.net/showPicture.aspx?id=98756

[Anonymous]

http://www.rrpicturearchives.net/rsRRList.aspx?id=6

Try the pics here... all sorts of Gon stuff... paint, loads, users, graffitti...

[Anonymous]

Pick up the December issue of Railroad Model Craftsman magazine - there is an 8 page article on gondolas with loads. All kinds of prototype photos and modeling suggestions.

Bob Boudreau

[exPalaceDog]

QUOTE: Originally posted by Eriediamond

Something else they hauled. Years ago the Erie would spot a couple of gons on a siding near Eden Valley, NY. They would load them with horse manure from the Buffalo Raceway (a horse race track near Buffalo) and the Erie would haul it to mushroom farms in Pa. Now theres a project for someone wanting something different!!!! [(-D][(-D] And yes I am seriouse. Ken

And there were the "guts" cars, packing house waste. Don't get down wind in summer!

Have fun

[nbrodar]

Don't forget Bethgon Coal Porters, are classified as gondolas. So add coal, trash, and the like.

Nick

[Boiler-man]

A few years back when I worked for a Pressure Vessel Fabricator I used them for Hauling Master Plates of steel from a distribution point in Huston Texas to Portland Oregon.
I have seen them loaded with flattened automobiles heading for a steel mill to be recycled.

[Eriediamond]

Something else they hauled. Years ago the Erie would spot a couple of gons on a siding near Eden Valley, NY. They would load them with horse manure from the Buffalo Raceway (a horse race track near Buffalo) and the Erie would haul it to mushroom farms in Pa. Now theres a project for someone wanting something different!!!! [(-D][(-D] And yes I am seriouse. Ken

[cnw4001]

Also used for spacers for oversize/overweight loads and hazardous loads.

Not really on Class 1 but they can have benches installed and used for "open" cars on excursion trains.

[miniwyo]

"Dirty" dirt, that is radioactive from nuclear waste, there was a bunch of them through a while back, i tihnk the pics are on my photobucket site.

[Anonymous]

round bales of hay- that sounds interesting- what rr was hauling it?

[twcenterprises]

One of my RR books even shows them hauling coal (large chunk size) and hay (large round bales). I call them the "pickup trucks of the RR's", they're just about that useful.

Brad

[jacon12]

I've seen an entire train of them headed south from Macon, Ga. carrying what looked to be chunks of rock for a few cars, then it changed to a few cars of smaller rocks, then smaller until the last couple of cars had an almost sand type material in it.

[Anonymous]

They're also used for transporting turnouts to their destinations.


...And whatever this is.

[tatans]

Strangest load I've ever seen in a gon, was 5 in a row gons filled with green seven-up bottles heading for a glass smelter, now that's a lot of bottles.

[BRAKIE]

Try coil steel..Want a really odd but,prototypical load? Turn scraped trailers and containers upside down and haul 'em away.I see loads like this from time to time.

[lesterperry]

On my layout I have about 3 of them cycleing around to my car shop & round house hauling scrap away. Trucks wheel sets couplers doors ect. They go of layout are emptied and sent back to carshop & round house. I have about 10 others that just pass through some loaded some MT

[loathar]

I bet a lot of them are hauling debris out of New Orleans these days.

[chutton01]

Unfortunately in these parts (Tri-State NY), they are most often used for scrap hauling (long lines of them at Port Newark), and construction debris (bathtub gondolas with covers are also used for hauling MSW (muncipal solid waste - household garbage). I notice a lot of the structural steel items (girders/trusses/pipes) that in the past were associated with gondolas nowadays seem to go by flatcars (perhaps easier to unload from the side), althought this is only ancedotal - but you can't go wrong with scrap and construction debris in modern gondolas.

That seems to be about it for revenue service at this time, but you see them alot in non-revenue (MOW) service, hauling ballest, dirt, old rail and ties and so on - there are unit trains of gondolas linked together, and an excavator/backhoe drives along the top chords (top edges of the sides) to load/unload whatever kind of mineral/dirt the gondolas are carrying.

[dehusman]

They are very commonly loaded with metal products (pipe, plate, structural, rolled shapes, castings, billet, ingots, bars, ods, etc) and aggregates (crushed rock, gravel, chat, rip rap, etc).

Dave H.

[dragonriversteel]

Ericsp and Cacole....pretty much summed it up. Oh and add oversized machines,bridge beams,auto and truck frames,contaiminated dirt with a tarp....the list is endless.

Patrick

[cacole]

Whatever will fit, can be loaded and unloaded with a crane, and doesn't need to be protected from the weather. If it does need to be protected, there are covered gondolas.

[ericsp]

Here are some things I have seen gondolas hauling:
Pipes
Billets
Beams
Wire coils
Coiled sheet metal
Rebar
Telephone poles
Scrap metal
Used ties
Jersey barriers

I have also seen gondolas carrying what appeared to be large chunks of rock that probably came from a quarry.

You could probably also add rails and gravel to that

[Anonymous]

i know they can haul almost anything but what would they haul on a present day Class 1 railroad?