"No soup for you!" - Yev Kassem (from Seinfeld)
Go here for my rail shots! http://www.railpictures.net/showphotos.php?userid=9296
Building the CPR Kootenay division in N scale, blog here: http://kootenaymodelrailway.wordpress.com/
Carl
Railroader Emeritus (practiced railroading for 46 years--and in 2010 I finally got it right!)
CAACSCOCOM--I don't want to behave improperly, so I just won't behave at all. (SM)
These were built by Santa Fe back in the late 1980's. An article on them was written for Railroad Model Craftsman in the Feb 1995 issue. The car was built by Thrall, and the article has several pictures on them and how to build a model if you are interested. I have built a 3 hopper one using PS2 hoppers, and am in the process of getting a 5 car one done. Railroad Model Craftsman has back issues on these cars and can be located at www.rrmodelcraftsman.com Can anyone get me a couple of good pictures of those SF Super Hoppers??? Would like them of the Santa Fe, and the word Super Hopper...Tks....Wayne
Lotus098 wrote:What he said. What's is a Super Hopper. I gather it isn't the Super Chief when the dining car special is Mexican Jumping Beans.
LOL! I couldn't find any pics of them. I'll keep looking.
Dan
Here are the only photographs I have found on the internet.
http://208.143.210.196/image6845%5C00000009.jpg
http://208.143.210.196/image6844%5C00000004.jpg
Here are a pair of pics I took when I found two of them at Hanford,CA back in July
http://neil300.rrpicturearchives.net/showPicture.aspx?id=450723
http://neil300.rrpicturearchives.net/showPicture.aspx?id=450725
Give the fact these cars have not multiplied, one assumes that they were not as practical or effecient as they had hoped. Yet, there are lots of well cars of this type of design...I wonder what the difference is? Are the well/flat cars more flexible for the types of loads they can handle? Yet, lots of hoppers are kept in dedicated grain or pellet service...
Any ideas?
JSGreen wrote:Give the fact these cars have not multiplied, one assumes that they were not as practical or effecient as they had hoped. Yet, there are lots of well cars of this type of design...I wonder what the difference is? Are the well/flat cars more flexible for the types of loads they can handle? Yet, lots of hoppers are kept in dedicated grain or pellet service... Any ideas?
I was working at Thrall in Chicago Heights when these were built. I had no idea they were still around.
Basically I think putting a bulk commodity that loads to the weight capacity of the car in articulated equipment is very different (and less efficient) than putting relatively light weight merchandise containers on articulated equipment. And even with the relative light weight of container traffic, they've still had to develop stand alone well cars to handle the heavier stuff. In other words, articulation is a bad idea for heavier loading commodities.
Oh well, they gave it a shot - sometimes you don't really know untill you get prototypes on the road and under test.
Santa Fe was trying all kinds of new equipment ideas. They constructed prototype intermodal grain containers that could be double stacked. IIRC, double stacked on a spine car.
I went through 'em once a long time ago at the Intermodal Expo in Atlanta. They had a grate for a floor that was to allow backahauls with merchandise. These containers weren't rectangles, they had rounded tops. The bottom was shaped so as it either hung down on both sides of the flatcar's center sill, or fit over the rounded roof of the bottom container. These didn't work either.
Then there was the "coaxial" train - which I'm not even gonna' try to describe.
You can write this off as folly, but! If you don't drill a few dry holes, you're not looking hard enough for the oil. They can't try everything, but if it looks good on paper then they might want to give it a try by building a few prototypes and seeing how they do.
They are an awesome site in those photos.
I have never seen the ATSF Super Hopper in person.
The Burlington Northern Trough Train articulated Coal Gondola most likely had the same problems. I did see the BN Trough Train in Gillette, Wyoming in 1993. That was an unusual freight car. It reminded me of a centipede.
Andrew
Watch my videos on-line at https://www.youtube.com/user/AndrewNeilFalconer
Well, I've seen these monsters and had no idea they were anything special. I'm from the San J. valley and once in a while you spot one of these around Fresno, Visalia or Hanford/Armona. I thought that they would be used to ship commodities across the country but I guess they stay in the Valley? The San Juoquin valley is a great place to see all sorts of cars because the tracks parellel the 99 Fwy. from about Elk Grove all the way to Bakersfield. Lots of silos around Keyes and Stockton; Fresno has all sorts of grain and produce; Kingsberg has raisins; Visalia/Tulare have oranges. I'll be down that way this weekend and I'll keep my eyes open for these big hoppers.
Bill
Reno Sparky wrote: Well, I've seen these monsters and had no idea they were anything special. I'm from the San J. valley and once in a while you spot one of these around Fresno, Visalia or Hanford/Armona. I thought that they would be used to ship commodities across the country but I guess they stay in the Valley? The San Juoquin valley is a great place to see all sorts of cars because the tracks parellel the 99 Fwy. from about Elk Grove all the way to Bakersfield. Lots of silos around Keyes and Stockton; Fresno has all sorts of grain and produce; Kingsberg has raisins; Visalia/Tulare have oranges. I'll be down that way this weekend and I'll keep my eyes open for these big hoppers. Bill
The Super Hoppers probably bring in grain from the Midwest. Do you mean Manteca to Bakersfield. While the tracks do parallel 99 between Sacramento and Manteca, they are a couple of miles away north of Manteca. Unfortunately, to the best of my knowledge, raisins no longer are shipped by rail. I don't think the Sun-Maid plant even has a spur.
There is a SupperHopper in the North Yard Fort Worth Tx today. Been there all morning, lots of graffiti, super hopper lettering barely visable.
Coupled to 2 NS locomotives.
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