Everything about Gondola Rail totally explained
In
railroad terminology, a
gondola is an open-top type of
rolling stock that's used for carrying loose bulk materials. Because of its low side walls, gondolas are used to carry either very dense material, such as
steel plates or coils, or bulky items such as prefabricated pieces of
rail track.
History
Before the opening of the
Baltimore & Ohio Railroad and the
Chesapeake & Ohio Canal in Harpers Ferry (West Virginia née Virginia), considerable amounts of
coal were carried via the Potomac River. Since timber was an abundant resource, flat boats, called “
gondolas” (a spoof on Venetian rowing boats), were constructed to navigate the "black diamonds" down river to markets around Washington, DC. There, both the boat and cargo were sold and the boatmen returned home by foot. The railroad cars first employed in the haulage of coal were thus named after these shallow-draft boats called “gondola cars.”
Early gondola cars typically had low sides. Their contents had to be shoveled out by hand and they took a long time to unload. In 1905, the
Ralston Steel Car Company patented a flat bottom gondola with lever operated chutes that allowed the gondola to be unloaded automatically from the bottom. The chutes would direct the contents of the gondola to the sides. This coincided with the switch from wood to steel freight cars as the pulling force of locomotives tended to crush the older wood cars.
Specialized car types
Lorry
Or
tippler (UK)
An open railroad car (gondola) with a tipping trough, often found in
mines.
Container well carscontainers, and in some ways resemble traditional gondolas, although their floors are usually partially open. A depressed center section provides a floor which is only inches above the rails. This stabilizes the container by lowering the
center of gravity, also allowing double-stacking, which would be impossible if the containers were placed on a
flatcar. Single-unit well cars exist, but 3- and 5-car
articulated sets are common. These reduce weight by reducing the number of
trucks by nearly half, and also reduce the amount of slack in the train since there are fewer couplers. This protects the cargo by reducing the jolts that occur at starting and stopping caused by slack.
Modalohr road trailer carriers
Specialized
railroad cars carrying
road trailers and
road tractors on a route from
France to
Italy and
Luxembourg to
Spain and vice versa. A deck between the
bogies (trucks)
pivots (swings) 30°, allowing the trailers to be loaded from the sides. For details see the official sites
Rail-route
or
ModalohrFurther Information
Get more info on 'Gondola Rail'.
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