CN slab side hoppers

[Canadian Atlantic Railway]

i acquired a few Tru Line Trains CN slab side hoppers awhile ago. Some have round hatches and the rest have square hatches. I assume the different hatches signify service for different industries. Can someone give me a breakdown on what products the cars were used for?

[iomalley]

Not actually, the square hatches were earlier builds. The round hatches, like all hoppers, seal much better. I have an article somewhere 'in my archives' that lists all the commodities shipped in them, I'll see if I can dig them up and scan them for you.

[Canadian Atlantic Railway]

Jun 14, 2015 21:12:28 GMT -5 iomalley said:

Not actually, the square hatches were earlier builds. The round hatches, like all hoppers, seal much better. I have an article somewhere 'in my archives' that lists all the commodities shipped in them, I'll see if I can dig them up and scan them for you.

Thanks Sean. I am looking at grain and cement as the primary commodities. Do you know if the square hatches stayed till the car was retired or were they retrofitted with round hatches?

[CP_8530]

Both the squares and rounds stayed in service into the mid-90's before retirement. Some were kept after for OCS sand service and renumbered as high 5339x cars:

freight.railfan.ca/cgi-bin/image.pl?o=cn&i=cn53395
freight.railfan.ca/cgi-bin/image.pl?o=cn&i=cn53397

They were probably used for hauling grain earlier in their lives, but larger capacity cars likely pushed them out of that service. Cement and sand hauling come to mind as some of their usual uses later in life.

[Canadian Atlantic Railway]

The era and commodities will work out perfectly. Thank you!

Two more questions. When were boxcar roof walks banned in Canada and friction bearing trucks?

[CP_8530]

They were both banned from interchange service, but not outright banned. So a car with either or both can travel the entire home road's system as long as it's not interchanged.

In general, freight car manufacturers started making cars without roofwalks in the mid-late 60's. The FRA outlawed roofwalks and high mounted brakewheels on new cars built in the late 60's, with a grace period until roofwalks were outlawed for cars in interchange service in 1974 (I've also heard 1978, 10 year grace period from 1968), but extended to 1983. Of course, this does not apply to covered hoppers and such, mainly boxcars and reefers. And, even though high brakewheels were outlawed on new build cars they weren't banned outright, so cars like the CP and QGRY Hawker Siddely newsprint cars were running around until recently with removed roofwalks but high-mount brakewheels (freight.railfan.ca/cgi-bin/image.pl?i=qgry80379_2&o=qgry)

From another groups, apparently friction (or solid) bearing trucks were banned from interchange service on cars carrying hazardous materials in the beginning of 1991. All other cars with them banned from I/C service in 1994. And cars with converted friction to roller bearing trucks (think Rapido gondolas) were banned from I/C service in 1995.

But as mentioned before, they often stuck around on company service/MofW/OCS cars that weren't to be interchanged: freight.railfan.ca/cgi-bin/image.pl?i=cp360847&o=cprail

[iomalley]

When I worked for CN, I found a 'modern' ACF style covered hopper in the yard with a high mounted brakewheel. I never thought of looking at the build date, but should have as 999.99% of hoppers this style have the low brake wheels as they were none older than the early 60's.

I always thought it woulda been cool to model this car, but I didn't record any info, and who would notice the finished model anyway...

[beentherecnthat]

Some of the cars in the 5339xx series are labeled as "spacer car only" and use to accompany heavy duty flatcars with loads to spread the weight of the load further from the locomotive. There is a white panel/sign on the side restricting this service.

[CP_8530]

CN did have a group of those early ACF cylindrical hoppers (but built by Hawker Siddeley to that same design) acquired through North American leasing. CN 373000-373099, later going to the GTW in the late 70's.

Indusmin was running some in the early-mid 2000's too, out of their Nephton and Blue Mountain mine operations (CP Nephton and Havelock Subs): freight.railfan.ca/cgi-bin/image.pl?i=nahx45687&o=northamerican

[Canadian Atlantic Railway]

Thank you for all of the information gentlemen