Kevin’s Komments 09/16/2024

Covered Hoppers & Moving Grain

I believe we’ve had discussions at the club about covered hoppers and when grain began being shipped by covered hoppers. The Cincinnati Northern passed through western Ohio, a strong agricultural region. About every town had a small elevator that the local farmers could bring their grain to ship off to processing mills/plants. Yet, because we model the ‘50s era, our layout(s) have been mostly without covered hoppers – grain in the ‘50s was shipped by boxcar. Early covered hoppers were typically built for the cement industry. There were limestone and cement industries supported by the Cincinnati Northern, so we should have covered hoppers to support these, but no grain hoppers. My source says that the first grain hoppers were built around 1958. You would have seen a split of boxcars and hoppers carrying grain from around 1960 all the way up to around 1980 with the 50/50 split around 1970. There were some dedicated flour covered hoppers used for specific industry routes as early as 1956, but unless modeling these specific routes, you would not have grain hoppers until the ‘60s.

I believe we’ve had discussions at the club about covered hoppers and when grain began being shipped by covered hoppers. The Cincinnati Northern passed through western Ohio, a strong agricultural region. About every town had a small elevator that the local farmers could bring their grain to ship off to processing mills/plants. Yet, because we model the ‘50s era, our layout(s) have been mostly without covered hoppers – grain in the ‘50s was shipped by boxcar. Early covered hoppers were typically built for the cement industry. There were limestone and cement industries supported by the Cincinnati Northern, so we should have covered hoppers to support these, but no grain hoppers. My source says that the first grain hoppers were built around 1958. You would have seen a split of boxcars and hoppers carrying grain from around 1960 all the way up to around 1980 with the 50/50 split around 1970. There were some dedicated flour covered hoppers used for specific industry routes as early as 1956, but unless modeling these specific routes, you would not have grain hoppers until the ‘60s.

This Erie covered hopper looks to be the same build as the New Haven above. I can’t read it for sure, but looks like built date is in the ‘40s. It’s capacity appears to be only 50 tons, but based on the ACI label, it was still in service in the late ‘60s. Again, it’s likely a cement hopper.

This Erie covered hopper looks to be the same build as the New Haven above. I can’t read it for sure, but looks like built date is in the ‘40s. It’s capacity appears to be only 50 tons, but based on the ACI label, it was still in service in the late ‘60s. Again, it’s likely a cement hopper.

CNJ #65076 is a two bay covered hopper rebuilt from a USRA 50 ton open top. Per the CNJ numbering, I believe this was originally built by Pullman. I don’t know for sure, but my guess is it was used for cement or mineral service.

The PRR built 34ft H30 covered hoppers constructed from 1935 to 1958 for cement transport. These hoppers were also used for soda ash, lime, and sand – any minerals that needed protection from moisture. I found this page interesting – It’s from a 1946 report from Altoona (PRR shops). The shown page reports about covered hopper construction, specifically PRR #254651. This is page 24 of the 44 page report. The report was titled “The Pennsylvania Railroad Company, Altoona Works, 1946.” Page caption: “Building Class H30, All-steel Covered Hopper Cars.” It gives a little insight into the hopper construction. Check out the center sill in the first pic. We’ll discuss the center sill later as covered hoppers evolved.

Here’s a1940 built H30 in Marshalltown, IA – PRR #25985.

Still another PRR H30 built in 1938. The number has been lined out meaning this hopper has probably been taken out of service

The PRR H30a was a later version of the H30 that had welded bolsters instead of cast.  This is a 1952 pic at the Altoona shops.

This is PRR #257971, an H34c class covered hopper built in 1958. The pic shows it on the BN at Cicero, circa 1980. H34 hoppers were designed for sand and were first built in 1958. There were several versions with different locations of hatches and ladders. #257971 was one of 377 self-clearing hoppers. 272 of the series were rated at 70 tons, while the remaining 105 were rated at 77 tons. Note that the hatches are now round in lieu of square.

Here’s an H34. Note the slight differences in hatch location and the ladders. It’s been renumbered as Penn Central #74202 and I believe this is in sand service. On a side note: There have been a few model manufactures that have produced H34c (previous pic), but apparently no one has produced an HO model of the H34.

Moving roughly a decade later to the PRR H44 series hoppers that were built for commodities in general. Note the cylinder shape of these hoppers. These could have been assigned to grain service – not built until the ‘60s. PRR #260414 was a class H44a – the “a” designating it had pneumatic nozzles to aid in the unloading. With the cylinder shape, these hoppers were permanently enclosed – there was not a separate cover. They had 3 pockets, and because they had a center sill, 6 unloading hatches, 3 on each side of the center sill. Capacity was 3700 cu. Ft and 100 tons. These hoppers could be insulated if needed.

PRR #259812 supports a look more familiar in modern railroading. This is a class H45 covered hopper and is listed as a cylindrical hopper like the H44. Being rated as cylindrical, the body is built into one piece, not a hopper with a lid. These were made for general service and could be assigned to grain service. PRR began building these 3-bay hoppers in the late ‘60s.

Here’s another cylindrical hopper – This is a Scoular 4-bay hopper, SIRX 465064. The cylindrical hoppers can still be seen on the modern rails of today. They were the forerunners of the more used ACF Centerflow/Trinity type covered hoppers that dominate the rails. Typically, these can be found hauling grain.

This Central New Jersey 2-bay hopper was built in 1956. It’s capacity matches the 70 ton cement hoppers. Note the round hatches. This pic appears to be taken when the car was new – no dust or dents. While it generally matches the cement hoppers, it’s about the time frame that a few hoppers were being assigned to grain service. I’m not sure if these were built for general service or for cement/sand/etc, but likely the latter.

Guess what? – Great Northern #174009 was assigned to grain service! This is another of the cylinder shaped covered hoppers. But unlike the PRR H44, this hopper is an ACF Center Flow hopper. These were built in the ‘60s. Most hoppers have two lines of outlets at the bottom of the bays to work around the typical center sill beam structure of the cars. The Center Flow design uses mostly the car itself as structure allowing the outlets to align down the middle.

ATSF #312043 is another ACF Center Flow hopper built in 1971. This hopper has the common modern covered hopper look. It’s considered cylindrical and is one piece (no removeable cover). ATSF listed this car as class Ga-174, pic taken in 1989 in Hamilton, Ontario.

Here’s a 4-bay covered hopper for use in plastics. Covered hoppers started transporting plastic pellets around the same time as they did grain (late ‘50s). By the early ‘70s, most plastic pellets traveled in covered hoppers. Since the pellets were relatively light, hoppers could be extended for greater volume. When I tried to look up ACFX #97733 on the American Car & Foundry site, I couldn’t find any of the 4-bay covered hoppers. But…(next pic)! (BTW, while looking for plastic pellet hoppers, I ran into a blog around 2013 were Randy Seiler was asking about plastic pellet service in the ‘70s. I’ve seen the nice covered hoppers on his layout – must have gotten the answer he was looking for!)

I found a section on ACFX 3-bay covered hoppers.  This hopper was originally lettered SHPX.  It was built by American Car & Foundry  in 1964 with a 100 ton capacity.  It uses the center flow design.  Dedicated to the Simpson Lee Paper Company, I’m not sure what role it plays.

If we go back to the ‘50s to see grain being transported by boxcar. Here is a grain door on a boxcar. Essentially, it’s wood slats fastened together and then fastened to the inside of the door opening on the boxcar. Later, sometimes the grain doors would be made of corrugated cardboard.

The grain was then loaded directly into the boxcar through the door opening above the grain door. In this pic, the loading is occurring from a storage bin below grade. More common, the boxcar would be loaded next to a grain elevator silo (from above).

Here’s the mechanical method of dumping the grain. The car is lifted with the doors open and grain door removed, tilted to one side, and then tilted back and forth from end to end so that the grain flows out the door.

Here’s two boxcars being emptied side-by-side.

Concluding this study, if you’re modeling the ‘50s or earlier, covered hoppers were used for cement and water sensitive minerals starting in the late ‘20s.  Moving to the ‘60s and later, covered hopper service was offered for grains, plastics, and chemicals in addition to the minerals.  If you’re modeling grain service, 1970 was about the time there was a 50/50 split between use of covered hoppers versus boxcars.  The variety and design of the covered hoppers evolved quickly in the ‘60s and ‘70s to accommodate all the new materials the hoppers carried.  While the earlier covered hoppers tended to be either converted open hoppers, or built like open hoppers with a cover, modern covered hoppers are cylindrical – one piece with no removable cover.  Modern hoppers tend to be designed with center flow rather than the earlier center sill structure with unloading hatches on either side.  And, top hatches were square until around the early to mid-‘50s when they were converted to round on the newer cars.

Now we can put together our covered hopper fleet!

Thx,

Kevin

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