The Mahoning Valley Railroad Heritage Association in Youngstown, Ohio has a very interesting collection of unusual railcars. Most were used in the steel industry. Two Pollock 125 ton bottle type hot metal cars, a Pollock open top hot metal car, Pollock slag ladle car, Atlas self propelled blast furnace transfer car, standard gauge ingot mold car, PRR ore jenny, six axle motor armature car (just imagine how big that motor armature is to require a 6 axle car to haul it around!) Photos of a few of the cars are on the Tod Engine website. Click on MVRHA.

http://www.todengine.org
jrowlands@neo.rr.com

>The self-propelled dump car pictured below isn't >something you see everyday.

That is awesome!

Flimsies
hkading@rypn.org

That truly is an impressive collection of steel industry rail equipment. I've had the pleasure of seeing hot bottle cars in use a couple of times, and so I appreciate their interest as artifacts. The Blast Furnace car, however is a new one on me. What exactly was one used for?

Sincerely,
David Ackerman

david_ackerman@yahoo.com

I haven't been up to Mid-Continent to find the actual length of the "shorty" RPO/Heater car, but here's a photo from Mid-Continent's recent Devil's Lake excursions, with it in the middle of the consist, that illustrates how much shorter that the "standard length" cars it is. (Photo is kind of big, so you have to scroll over to see the car.)

Allan

Devil's Lake Limited Excursions

ddg14@attbi.com