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Something else to keep in mind with all this old school coal business.As I was looking at photos and videos of this era, I was shocked by the mixup of hoppers all over the place.I grew up in the unit train era where loose coal cars were a rarity, so my brain (and I'm guessing a bunch of yours) always just thought about the hopper as coming from the originating road. But boy, was I wrong.Looking at photos of anthracite breakers you'd see a variety of roads hoppers. Yes, the majority might be the home road, but there were plenty of others in there.Hoppers definitely followed the same rules as boxcars back in the day.Oh, so there was a load of anthracite delivered to the local coal yard in a Reading hopper? When it's empty, send it to the local tipple and let the army of clerks all figure it out.Basically, don't feel compelled to follow super strict rules about "Anthracite in LV cars only, bituminous in B&O" when you're planning your movements.One thing to keep in mind though: car size might matter. For example, is the local coal dealer setup to be able to handle a 70 ton triple hopper? Or going back further, a PRR H21a? It simply might not fit.Hell, even the WM had that problem with it's export coal dumper in Port Covington.
Some background: For decades, to protect their hopper car supply, several railroads subscribed to an interchange rule that their hoppers could not be diverted for loading on the way to home rails. These included C&O, N&W, Virginian, L&N, C&EI, and WM. So we would typically not see these roadnames mixed with B&O hopper strings or at B&O mines. Exceptions: anything was possible with prior permission. Also, WM had trackage rights to serve Consolidation Coal mines in West Virginia, with WM motive power. B&O handled northbound L&N lake coal for six months a year, alternating with Big Four. Can you imagine what a cornucopia of hijackable L&N hoppers at Toledo could have been for a hopper klepto like B&O?. Not allowed. There was some Toledo - Ironton, Toledo - Ashland iron ore backhauls in somebody's hoppers, even L&N hoppers with permission.Turnabout being fair play, roads benefitting from the empty hopper return trip rule were also forbidden to shanghai anyone else's hoppers for loading.In 1971, B&O and P&LE adopted this interchange status. No one could used their hoppers for loading, nor could B&O/P&LE use foriegn hoppers for loading. So in the Chessie era, it was all home road cars. for hopper cars loaded on B&O/C&O. WM was added in 1975.The 11/1/1980 CSX merger enlarged the car supply to all involved railroads. Hence Clinchfied was all in the family. The merger day marks another visible change for Chessie modelers.Until I found this B&O interschange status, I had thought the all-and-only B&O/C&O hopper car strings in the coal fields was the fruition of a long sought full car supply for B&O/C&O. Maybe that, and the interchange rule.As for Indianapolis Division coal trains, by 1980 these would be unit trains. Western Kentucky coal would be competitive. Some Indianapolis power plants produced coal gas and coke, so maybe downstate Indiana coal was unsuitable. Staley on Decatur had power needs for their huge Decatur plant. Mines, customers, routing all depended on the coal contracts.
Depending on how faithful to a particular locale and era you want to model, the hopper cars that would be seen in your scene might be a little more complicated to model. The following come from a post for Jim Mischke on the B&O group:But, I doubt there are many folks who would go to a model layout and say, "You know, that road's hoppers wouldn't be seen at that mine before 1975, and you would need to renumber all your locos if you want to model after 1957."Just obey Rule #1 - do it the way that makes YOU happy!
But I can surely see several Asshats taking photos and posting a scathing review here on The Railwire! And deservedly so! LMAO 🤣
That perk is only available to Plaid Members, right?
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Topic: Coal grades in city coal yards (Read 1684 times)
