Hey all, I have a car that looks like the following and I was wondering what SP hauled in them in N.Cal region: http://cgi.ebay.com/ROCO-28861-QUAD-HOPPER-SOUTHERN-PACIFIC_W0QQitemZ3168192454QQcategoryZ19123QQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem Also, what about this car: http://cgi.ebay.com/Southern-Pacific-SP-Airslide-Hopper-Bowser-N-scale-1031_W0QQitemZ5974069217QQcategoryZ486QQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem
Is this a test? The first car is a common open top hopper car. Coal haulage only in the early years. The second car is a 50 foot covered hopper, although those do not look like SP reporting marks or the reporting marks of an SP lessor that I know about. It carried grain and commodities. Most common grain haulage car in the transition era? I would say boxcars. Lots of them were modified to haul grain. I consider the transition era to be 1940-1955 or so. Maybe the grain car shortage was after that; I am not sure. Otherwise, SP probably hauled grain in covered hoppers. No worries! We will get some experts on this subject soon! [ February 14, 2006, 02:45 PM: Message edited by: Flash Blackman ]
FiveFlat: I was thinking about this some more. I don't remember ever seeing pictures of a steam engine pulling covered hopper grain cars. Maybe they did, though. As I said, someone more knowledgeable than I am will have to answer.
Covered hoppers did exist in the late steam era, but weren't normally used to haul grain. They carried cement or sand in those days; grain was mostly carried in 40' boxcars.
Thanks Flash, and triplex. When were these mostly used? I think I still see some of these on the rails today...
FiveFlat, SP burned coal in their steam engines in the Southwest and Texas, so hoppers would have been common. Might have even been a coal mine along the route in Arizona or New Mexico, although I don't know for sure. The second car is an Airslide covered hopper, used to haul flour or other fine particulate loads. Not sure that SP had any, but I wouldn't doubt it. The 50' cars came into use in the 1960s. If SP hauled grain during the steam era, mostly like it would have been hauled in 40' boxcars, either bagged or loaded loose, like in a covered hopper car. Triplex is quite right about this. The Milwaukee Road used a lot of their old home-built 40' boxcar fleet to haul grain until well into the 1970s. Pat
Thinking about it now, this should be the case since grain was sacked. So it shouldn't have needed to be shipped in bulk back then.
FiveFlat, That last car has been in use since about the late 1960s (I think... ). It's used to haul cement and other heavy loads that would overload a larger covered hopper. This one looks like it was built by ACF. They are still in used. Pat
There are ALOT of grain elevators around me (northern California) and I see alot of what looks like that pictured one (2-bay centerflow) on their sidings as well as box cars too come to think of it. So would it make sense that grain could still be shipped in boxcars today in large bins?
Bulk grain was hauled in boxcars with the doors boarded up to about 2/3 height. (A grain bin with a roof). Boards were removed for unloading via gravity, with guys with shovels taking care of the last of it. I believe the SPH&TS had a feature on these sometime in the past year.
