Drop end Gons... I'm not seeing something here...?

[Dave-the-Train]

We're having a good day for gons!

Okay, so I have short and long drop end gons (Walthers, E&C, Athearn and probaly others).

What were they used for?

I have a Walthers' 65' CSX "Pipe Loading Only" FIXED ended gon and all the Walthers 65' gons come with a pair of "add-in" headstocks for this sort of traffic...

Okay... you can put a load longer than the car in a drop end... PROVIDED...

• you chock up the load so that it doesn't sit on the ends... which fold INwards onto the floor.
• the load will not stick out so far at one or both ends that it fouls an adjacent track or a building on a curve.
• yes, you can have an empty car (or part car) under the protruding end.  (Can't think what it's called We'd call it a "runner"... among other things.
• the load will get round curves if it sits across the middle of two cars and the curves won't make it jam the sides

 These issues seem to me to make long loads quite a problem for MRR...?

It's the fact that the ends drop inwards that gets me... makes it kind of difficult to drop them to unload if the gon is full?  So this sort of precludes unloading ballast or sand from them with a front loader going in from the end... doesn't it?

I guess that, suitably secured and held up off the doors you could load ribbon rail...?

What makes me think of this is that I know that I've seen an article on a massively long wining cable (for a mine shaft) being loaded on a string of drop end gons - way back about 1900 when they hadn't sorted out joining the cables.  In this case the gons were marshalled, the cable strapped down in one end and then the whole string of cars run backwards and forwards under the place the cable came out from being made so that it was lopped into the train ... like a scain of wool.  At the mine they simply reversed the process.  (This would make a pretty neat model but would be a swine to get on/off the track).

UM anyway... what do they do with drop end gons please?

Just thought... cpuld load them with pallets/crates /drums using a forklift truck from the end... but you've got to get over that door sitting in the end...

TIA

[dehusman]

Drop end gons are used for loads longer than the length of the car.  Structural steel, poles, beams, pipe, etc.

The loads are blocked up over the ends of the cars.

The ends are dropped while the car is empty, then the car is loaded.

A flatcar is used next to the gon to protect the overhang.  Those types of loads aren't all that common.  By the way, the old MDC 30 ft flatcar was designed to be used in this type of service.  It was used as an idler for shipments of naval gun barrels.

Normall when they unload ballast with a backhoe or frontend loader from a gon the tractor crawls over the ends or on the sides.  They crawl up onto a loaded car and then move along the tops of the sides unloading the car behind them.  When they get to the end, they move to the next load and then finish the previous car while sitting on the next car.  I have seen hundereds of cars unloaded this way.

Ribbon rail is loaded in special flat cars with racks to hold the ribbon rail.  You could, I guess, put the same racks on a gon, but it would preclude it from being loaded with anything else since the racks have to be welded or bolted to the frame of the car.

It was quite common for early 1900 drop end gons to come with chains attached on the ends so the adjacent cars could be chained together, to prevent them from being uncoupled.

Dave H.