Santa-Fe Super Hopper?

[blownout cylinder]

OK--I need to keep a log on all the dang hoppers around the great plains. There is a photo on the BNSF Elevator Directory for a Firth NE Farmers Coop that shows a series of hoppers marked as Santa Fe with striping leading to another hopper with the words Super Hopper on it with the striping leading to another hopper with Santa Fe on it etc---there is a series of about 5 with the stripes ending at the 1st and 5th units. Were these semi permenantly coupled? Any information on these critters?

[cacole]

 There was a question on these forums last year which included a couple photos of the Super Hopper.

IIRC, it was basically one long permanently connected series of hoppers with no intermediate ends, that formed a long trough.

If you simply type 'Super Hopper' into Google you can find lots of information about them.

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1215/is_n3_v192/ai_10483071/

[greyhounds]

I was woking at Thrall when we built the "Super Hopper" prototypes for the Santa Fe.   I remember taking the editor of "Progressive Railroading" back in the shop to show him one.

The concept didn't make sense to me.  But then, I wasn't in charge.  It seems the Santa Fe tried to extend the success of articulation use in intermodal cars to bulk commodities with an articulated covered hopper.

I figured that this would result in axle weight problems with bulk loading.  One truck could often support the ends of two intermodal platforms because the weight of the containers/trailers wasn't that great.  But when thry tried to support the ends of two hoppers with one truck, they ran into problems with weight and had to make the hopper compartments fairly small so as not to overload the truck.  (Eventually, double stack cars were built in non-articulated configurations to accept more weight.)

But nobody asked me.

I guess the idea didn't work out.  The cars weren't ordered in large quantitites and BNSF bought new covered hoppers in a conventional configuration - although larger than their predicessors.  At least the "Super Hopper" prototypes weren't scrapped out, so they must be useful in some form.  

Santa Fe had a history of trying inovative equipment - except they resisted double stack for some reason.  I remember being at the Intermodal Expo in Atlanta (Talk intermodal all day, party to the wee hours.) when ATSF displayed some double stack containers that could carry grain in bulk.  They could load through the top and discharge at the bottom.  But they also had a grate type "floor" inside that would allow their use to handle dry package freight, such as UPS, going the other way.

Those don't seem to have worked out either. 

This isn't a criticism.  Comming up with inovative ideas and seeing if they work out is a good thring.  I wish we'd see more of it. 

[Andrew Falconer]

Look here first

http://www.qstation.org/atsfresource.html