Surviving Battleship Gondolas

GTW Dude · **Joined:** Thu Mar 11, 2021 12:46 pm **Posts:** 150

Is anyone aware of surviving battleship gondolas like the picture below? I know a few were used in steel mills after being sold off by Class 1’s, but i’m curious if any have survived into preservation or are still out in the wild.

Thanks!

John D · **Joined:** Mon Aug 23, 2004 2:28 pm **Posts:** 485

I'm pretty sure that one of the Virginian Railway battleship gons survives at the railroad park in Victoria, VA (along with a Virginian caboose): https://victoriava.net/parks-and-recreation

The link above states "historical Virginian Railway car, caboose, and equipment.", and somewhere I thought I read that a gon was there.

Alexander D. Mitchell IV · **Posted:** Fri Jan 06, 2023 12:31 pm

Google Street View of the Railroad Park shows a standard, regular-height Virginian-painted gondola on one of the old roundhouse tracks, not a Virginian "bathtub/battleship" gon.

John D · **Joined:** Mon Aug 23, 2004 2:28 pm **Posts:** 485

ADM-cool-understood-thanks for clarifying!

klmiller611 · **Joined:** Fri Mar 22, 2019 11:07 am **Posts:** 57

The Virginian gondola at Victoria, Va was a standard low-side VGN gon, as reported. It was purchased by Roanoke Chapter NRHS from Norfolk Southern some years back. The Chapter already had another VGN gondola and decided this one would be best served at Victoria, and donated such to them.

The "battleship" gondola at Northwestern Steel and Wire in Sterling, IL was in, as expected, horrible condition when the plant closed. I've only seen a photo of it from about 1971 or so. Unfortunately, there was little movement in that era to preserve old freight cars, and even so, it may well have not been in any condition to interchange.

I am assuming it was scrapped with the plant.

Ken Miller

David H. Hamley · **Joined:** Tue Aug 24, 2004 3:07 pm **Posts:** 705

In the late 1950s the Dietch Co. scrapyard at Sharpsburg, PA had a number of these cars arrive from the VGN. Most were scrapped quickly but a few were used for internal movements of scrap on their extensive rail system. On one occasion such a car was filled nearly level full of lengths of rail. GOK how much that weighed, but in any event it was too much for the wobbly track around the scrapyard. It was later spotted with one truck buried almost completely, surrounded by fractured bits of rail. The car and its contents were cut up where it had landed.

R. Hahn · **Joined:** Sun Aug 22, 2004 5:01 pm **Posts:** 199

klmiller611 wrote:

The Virginian gondola at Victoria, Va was a standard low-side VGN gon, as reported. It was purchased by Roanoke Chapter NRHS from Norfolk Southern some years back. The Chapter already had another VGN gondola and decided this one would be best served at Victoria, and donated such to them.

The "battleship" gondola at Northwestern Steel and Wire in Sterling, IL was in, as expected, horrible condition when the plant closed. I've only seen a photo of it from about 1971 or so. Unfortunately, there was little movement in that era to preserve old freight cars, and even so, it may well have not been in any condition to interchange.

I am assuming it was scrapped with the plant.

Ken Miller

I found this photo on Flickr of the NSW battleship gon from the 1980's. Definitely would have been more than a bondo job to restore.

Roger