Solid bottom gondola?

[Nick_Burman]

Is there or was there a Japanese classification for solid-bottom gondolas? By these I mean open cars without drop or side doors or hopper floors and which require a car dumper to be emptied. AFAIK JNR did not have such cars in their fleet, however maybe one of the industries (steel, cement) might have used them, and what classification would have they received.

 

Cheers Nicholas

[katoftw]

I cannot quite picture what you mean. Can you provide a pic of it?

 

Do you mean like a coal or grain wagons that doesn't have lower doors? Tilt to empty?

Edited October 25, 2022 by katoftw

[Tony Galiani]

Take a look at this page:  https://www.trinityrail.com/products/gondolas/

 

You will see a number of cars designed to carry coal or aggregates that need to be emptied via a rotary car dumper or, I imagine, could be emptied by a mechanical coal shovel as well.

 

Tony Galiani

[bill937ca]

Looking through the Hobby Search freight car directory I see several different classifications.  Now you just need a prototype reference. It seems Tora is two axle and Toki four axle.

 

Toki15000

https://www.1999.co.jp/eng/10451618

 

Toki25000

https://www.1999.co.jp/eng/10701034

 

Tora5500

https://www.1999.co.jp/eng/10315914

 

Tora7000

https://www.1999.co.jp/eng/10066039

 

Edited October 26, 2022 by bill937ca

[Nick_Burman]

21 hours ago, katoftw said:

Do you mean like a coal or grain wagons that doesn't have lower doors? Tilt to empty?

 

Yes. More specifically ore cars, something like the PRR's G39 solid-bottom cars.

 

Cheers Nicholas

[Nick_Burman]

26 minutes ago, bill937ca said:

Looking through the Hobby Search freight car directory I see several different classifications.  Now you just need a prototype reference. It seems Tora is two axle and Toki four axle.

 

Toki15000

https://www.1999.co.jp/eng/10451618

 

Toki25000

https://www.1999.co.jp/eng/10701034

 

Tora5500

https://www.1999.co.jp/eng/10315914

 

Tora7000

https://www.1999.co.jp/eng/10066039

 

 

Thanks Bill,

 

What I'm looking for is something akin to PRR's G29 tight-bottom gondolas or the Southern Pacific prototype cars made by Bachmann. Similar cars were built in Japan for export (Pilbara lines in Australia). AFAIK JNR never had anything similar; maybe one of the big steel mills or cement plants had a something along these lines as internal user cars. What I would like to know is what classification a similar car could have received in Japan had it been built for domestic use? "To" is mostly gondolas with drop-down side doors.

 

Cheers Nicholas

 

 

 

 

 

[katoftw]

Yeah I'd say Japan didn't have anything similar. Just old wooden wagons like Bill posted with fold/drop down sides. Emptied by men with shovels.

 

Japan was getting out of coal mining in the 80s and 90s so they didn't upgrade to bigger wagons like Aus Rus USA Can did.

[Kiha66]

While not a sperate category, if built under JNR they would probably fall under the HO-(MU/RA/SA/KI) for hopper (load weight capacity of car).  HO means hopper, which seems closer to rotary dump cars that TO, which is more generic "freight car without roof".  This page has listing for JNR train symbols and what they mean.
http://sunny-life.net/train_symbol/trainsymbol.htm#FreightCars

[bikkuri bahn]

Quote

Japan was getting out of coal mining in the 80s and 90s so they didn't upgrade to bigger wagons like Aus Rus USA Can did.

This.  Government policy shifted from domestic mining of coal to imports of oil (and coal) in the 1970's, and though I am no expert on coal distribution, I think things like rotary coal dumps/unit train ops. came of age in the 1970's (I remember seeing a rail loop and presumably rotary setup at the Ray Nixon Power Plant outside Colo. Springs COLO, in the early 1980s, burning Wyoming coal).  In Japan any coal used for power generation (other than limited uses such as inland cement plants etc.) likely shifted to shipped-in material by the late 70s.  Thus no need to develop bathtub type rolling stock. 

[Welshbloke]

We called them tipplers in the UK, and they were around much earlier than the '70s. There were steel-bodied four wheel wagons for iron ore which looked very similar to the standard 16t mineral wagon (but minus the side/end/floor doors). Later there were bogie designs, some with rotating couplers which meant the train didn't have to be split while unloading.

 

It was also common for docks to unload wagons by tipping them up on end with a hinged ramp, dumping the contents through the end door onto a conveyor or chute into a waiting ship. The older wooden-bodied wagons had extra nubs on the buffer castings at the door end, to stop the floor planks disappearing with the load.

 

The South Wales ports had great ranks of these things at the peak of coal exports, Hornby offered a working one in OO for years which has made at least one reappearance.