Found an additional "collection" of drop bottom gondolas at a museum that no one had mentioned, so thought I would mention them and also do a recap since it appears that we have pretty much mentioned those that survive in preservation.

First of all, as pointed out by a few folks, and with a figure provided by Doug vV, there are about 75 D&RGW narrow gauge (3 foot) drop bottom gondolas in Colorado, California and New Mexico. Standard gauge examples....not so much! The "collection" I alluded to above is at the Western Pacific Railroad Museum which, according to their website, has three Southern Pacific cars and also one from the Western Pacific. So here's a quick list of STANDARD gauge cars, in no particular order:

UP #908372 at Boulder Valley RY H.S. in Boulder, CO (to be returned to another group)

UP # ? at Heber Valley RR in Heber City, UT (road number would be appreciated!)

NAUG #92788 at Naugatuck RR (RMNE) in Thomaston, CT (ex-B&M #92788)

Southern #920079 on Buffalo Southern RR in MofW service

GWR #82 on Great Western RY at Loveland, CO (ex-Utah Railway #20919)

NP #50409 at Northern Pacific RY Museum in Toppenish, WA (on loan from MTM)

WP #5023 at Western Pacific RY Museum in Portola, CA (ex-WP #91xx)

SP #358262 at Western Pacific RY Museum in Portola, CA

SP #358646 at Western Pacific RY Museum in Portola, CA

SP #359246 at Western Pacific RY Museum in Portola, CA

SP #150340 at Western RY Museum in Suisun City, CA (ex-SP #358973; ex-USGX 540)

SP #358835 at Orange Empire RY Museum in Perris, CA

All cars have steel sides except the Southern Pacific cars which are composite gondolas and have wood sides.


Les

Note - Revised to add Utah RY car number to Great Western car.

Last time I was up at the Canadian Railway Museum in Delson, P.Q., about twenty five years ago, they had at least one drop bottom car, of the Otis patent that was popular in Canada, IIRC. I believe it was a CN car. Unfortunately, their web site only lists highlights of the collection, and it isn't listed.

I don't have photographic proof... or even a number... but within the last 6 months a Union Pacific lettered drop bottom gon was cut up for scrap at the yard here in town.
That's the first one I ever saw in person. It was in silver paint.
There is a railroad contractor here in town who has leased a part of the UP yard to store MofW cars that they rebuild... and there were probably 40 cars of various styles they had accumulated. All gone to the torch. Besides this gon, various cars of note that went to razor blades were about 3 passenger (baggage) cars and an old UPFE reefer. The reefer had been used as a tool car. Still had NICE wood lining on the inside of the car... the Detroit diesel had been removed.
The only thing left interesting here now is a C&NW jordan spreader... all disassembled.

GWR 82 (Great Western Railway) is owned by John Birmingham and stored on a spur at Boulder Scientific Company in Mead Colorado.

The car was built in 1917 as Utah Railway 20919. Purchased by the Great Western in 1957 for sugar bet service, wooden side extensions added at that time. Initaily numbered as GWR 311, later numbered GWR 82.

The paint and lettering currently on the car were applied in June of 2003, looks like it is holding up well .(Paint was rustoleum gloss black over rusty metal primer.) Attached is a photo of the car from May of 2003, just prior to being painted. Repack date and other date stencils on the car are the dates that were on the car prior to repainting, I made new stencils using the old dates.

Jason Midyette

Jason -

Thanks for the info. I was a bit surprised to see that the old lettering on the car read Utah Coal Route with the reporting marks of UCR. But, I then found out that that the original name of the line when incorporated in 1912 was Utah Coal Railway. The 2,000 or so drop bottom gons on their roster, were all so lettered! I guess we should be happy that at least one of that huge fleet still exists.

BTW, well done paint job!

Les

The Smoky Hill RR museum at Belton MO has an ex UP gondola, number unknown.

And now I've found still another one; this at the Northwest Railway Museum in Snoqualmie, Washington:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/happy-phee ... otostream/

This is Pacific Coast Railway #9041, formerly a Great Northern car (road number unknown).

Thanks ge44tonner, for the report on the car in Belton, Missouri.



Les

Jason,

Thanks so much for the backstory on the gon I saw on the Great Western back in 2013.

Here are thumbnail links to the other photos I took of the car that day:


R.C. Whitehead

R.C. -

Thanks for the additional photos of GW #82.

I did a search this morning, and came up with this photo of the car that's in Belton, Missouri on the Belton, Grandview & Kansas City Railroad:

http://www.rrpicturearchives.net/showPi ... ?id=183823

As you can see, the Union Pacific road number is 65333. So, we're now up to 14 surviving standard gauge drop bottom gondolas.

BTW, the car at the Northwest Railway Museum is shown in their website as being from the Pacific Coast Railway. I believe that this line was a 3' narrow gauge railroad. Can anyone explain how this ex-Great Northern car ended up on that line? Thanks.

Les

Found this photo on the internet:

http://www.rrpicturearchives.net/showPi ... ?id=511840

Might UP #65083 possibly be the drop bottom gondola that's at the Heber Valley Railroad? The gon there has been in a number of photo freights but never seems to be right behind the locomotive where its road number might be viewed. This photo was taken in 2006 in Charleston, Utah, so thought that perhaps this might be a place on the Heber Valley line. Info welcome!

Les

With all these pictures showing up, I feel a teaching moment coming on.

Both the Utah Coal Route and UP cars are Enterprise designs. patented with the rights owned by the Enterprise Railway Equipment Co. The UCR car is the older design, later called the "chain device" by Enterprise when the need to differentiate arose. Both designs have in common the fact that while in transit the doors are solidly supported; not hung by the chains. Note in the close up photos of the UCR car the door operating shafts pass through slots in the framing. The doors are closed by common chain that wraps into a groove a casting attached to the shaft. The last revolution or so of that shaft causes it to creep sideways under the doors, where the serrated rollers engage castings mounted on the doors, so when fully closed, the doors are supported by the rollers and shafts under them.

The UP car has a newer enterprise design, which they called the "link device" in their literature. In this design the door operating shaft bearing locations are fixed. The doors are hung with special chains that work similar to roller chain (think bicycle chain). The links are of unequal length, designed so that as they roll up they nest into a solid disk, which, in the final motion of closing the doors, comes into solid contact with the underside of the door, again supporting it by compression, rather than tension in the chain.

As far as I know, when the link design was introduced, the chain design remained in production for those customers who thought it better. Both UP and SP were big proponents of the link design.

The Pacific Locoomotive Assn has UP 61078 in the collection in Niles Canyon, CA.

Dick Harley of the UP Historical Society sent me the following info when I was seeking info on the car:

"Your UP 61078 is part of UP class G-70-6, which was a 70-ton 16 door drop-bottom car built by Gunderson in 1960 - fairly similar to the G-70-5 class built by ACF in 1957. There were 200 cars in the class; they were numbered UP 60900 to 61099. It had roller bearing trucks when new. UP drop-bottom gons carried company coal, ballast, other aggregates, and sugar beets."

UP #65083 is on the HVRR. Charleston is on the line, and there is a siding there. That is where this picture was taken.

EPAT -

Thanks very much for confirming that UP 65083 is the drop bottom gon that's on the Heber Valley.


Les

Thanks for the background information. Knowing what a PITA poorly maintained modern ballast car pocket doors can be (particularly when the door was not closed properly before refilling) I can only imagine how dumping these chain-wound mechanisms would go these days.