Rotary dump coal gon question

[Erik W]

I was looking through a book on the Norfolk Southern and I noticed that in a couple of the photos the coal trains were made up of both rotary dump coal gondolas and conventional bottom emptying hoppers.  How then are these trains offloaded?  Are the coal gons rotary emptied, but not the conventional hoppers, or are they all emptied using the rotary dump?

Thanks,
Erik

[Denver Road Doug]

Some convention hoppers also have rotary couplers so I would guess they were all rotary dumped.   Although, I must admit my knowledge of NS hoppers is virtually zero.   BN's 3-bay fleet has rotary couplers and they were routinely used to fill in on a unit train, like if a gon had to be bad ordered, for example.

[Robbman]

They're rotary dumped, but not equipped with rotary couplers.  NS (and CSX) export coal piers in Norfolk (Hampton Roads for CSX) have dumpers that can take anywhere from 1 to 3 cars at a time and dump that set, they then drop by gravity to a yard.