Coal hoppers

[gator63]

 Can anyone tell me if there is  reason I see yellow ends on some coal hoppers? some times on one end some times of both ends. I have several and was just wondering if thier is a reaso for this.  

[mlehman]

With modern cars, this sometimes indicates the end with a rotary coupler, since they are typically dumped by that method. You do not want to try that with two fixed couplers locked together...

A lot of the newer cars have aluminum paneling to save weight/increase capacity. This is harder to paint/keep paint on than most steel is. I think some cars are just painted like that to limit the cost of doing the whole care when owners deem it necessary. Throwing that in because the painted end=rotary coupler end thing isn't universal IIRC.

[dehusman]

As mentioned previously, in the modern era it generally means rotary couplers.  Some cars have both ends painted and they are double rotaries, one on each end. 

Back in the day, before unit coal trains, before 1960, the end of a hopper might be painted to denote a particular service.  The RDG painted the end panels of its taconite/iron ore hoppers orange and the raw sugar hoppers light blue.

[gator63]

Thank you  This helps. I'm sure I have many questions that have been posted before.

 

[wjstix]

dehusman

As mentioned previously, in the modern era it generally means rotary couplers.  Some cars have both ends painted and they are double rotaries, one on each end. 

Back in the day, before unit coal trains, before 1960, the end of a hopper might be painted to denote a particular service.  The RDG painted the end panels of its taconite/iron ore hoppers orange and the raw sugar hoppers light blue.

 

Starting in the late sixties some railroads in Minnesota painted one end of their ore cars that had taconite extensions yellow. The cars would be kept with the yellow part always facing the same direction on all the cars in the train. The idea was that this would aid the cars being loaded in a run-thru set up; the yellow helped the guy running the taconite pellet dumper know where one car ended and the other began.

[riogrande5761]

mlehman

With modern cars, this sometimes indicates the end with a rotary coupler, since they are typically dumped by that method.

For the 1970's and 1980's, thats the only reason they painted the ends a diffrent color that I'm aware of.  For the modern era, I have no idea - anything after the early 1990's is off my radar completely!