Hello Everyone, I want to know if any U.S. railroads used side dump gondolas? If so, did they use them in the 1970's? Did they use them for transporting ore? The reason I am asking is because on my layout I want to take ore from a mine to a smelter. My railroad is extremely small (3 1/2 by 6) so I don't have room for something as large as a rotary dumper or coal chutes. I thought that I could use side dump cars and dump the ore into a chute. Also who makes HO models of side dump gondolas? My railroad is set in the 1970's. Although I am freelancing, I am trying to stay within a prototypes' reality. Any help will be greatly appreciated. Thanks, Cary H. President and CEO Alpine Pacific Railway Company
Side-Dump gons are a fairly common piece of rolling stock in primarily Maintenance of Way operations for dumping rip rap and stone. I know that they were used on a couple railroads along the great lakes for transporting ore. They are used in revenue service for hauling stone, usually. They were around in the 1970's and there are still lots of them around today. Walthers makes the DIFCO Side Dump Gondola, I don't own any myself but they appear to be pretty good models.
As Pat said, there are side dumps on a lot of railroads, but they are fairly large. I think you might be referring to the smaller ore car side dumps. I don't think too many railroads used them, but on a small layout like yours, they should work well. A short, mine to smelter run would have probably involved a mine/smelter owned by one company, and the company would have probably owned the cars. as well as an engine to pull them. You could also simply use regular ore hoppers, and have the dump area simply be an elevated siding where the cars run up and dump thru a grate between the rails. You could have a conveyor feeding the material from the pit to where it's needed, or a front loader scooping from the pit and delivering the material to where it's going.
The Palmetto Brick Company east of Cheraw, SC used side dump cars on it rail road to transport clay from the pit area to the mill. It was about a one mile trip each way. This was a 3 foot gauge line, and operated until about a year ago. The economy has forced the company to suspend the use of the railroad, but the company is running the train one day this week, because the Narrow Gauge Convention is going on in North Carolina this week.
