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Etymology

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Bullshit folk etymology. They're called hopper cars because they're hoppers on a wagon, the term pre-dates railways. I'd suggest the section be removed outright. 121.45.14.34 (talk) 20:26, 30 August 2009 (UTC) I know it's been over half a year, but do you possibly have a source to back that up? As far as I remember the slang term "Hopper" used for slant wagons came about in the 1930s (I'm not expecting you to believe me, just like that, after I asked for proof, but I'm too lazy to look it up). A1s (talk) 19:46, 26 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

My dictionaries imply an etymology, though I don't know if it's acceptable to cite them. The Random House Dictionary of the English Language (2nd ed.) defines "Hopper Car" as a car containing "one or more hoppers so that bulk cargo can be quickly discharged through its bottom", so a hopper car is just a car that has hoppers (on a side note, it also dates "hopper car" to 1850-1865.) The concise OED defines "hopper: 3 a. a container tapering downward (originally having a hopping motion) through which grain passes into a mill. b. a similar contrivance on various machines." So a hopper (the big funnel shape that closes at the bottom) was a hopper because it hopped, at least in grain processors where it was first used. No word from either dictionary on why it was made to hop, but I can guess this was done to prevent the grain from sticking like it sometimes does in silos -- the grains fall together into a self-supporting arch, stopping the flow, and you have to send somebody to stand under the stuck grain and poke it with a stick and then jump out of the way so they don't get buried. A moving container would be safer and more efficient than a guy with a stick. DKFoster (talk) 18:48, 18 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I fixed this section. Etymonline says "hopper" goes back to the 13th century. The word "hopper" is actually found in Chaucer's Reeve's Tale:
“Bi god, right bi þe hoper wil I stand,”
quod Iohn, “and se hougat þe corn gas in.
ʒit sagh I neuer, bi mi fader kin,
hou þat þe hoper waggës til and fra.”
Which renders more or less
"By God, right by the hopper will I stand,"
quoth John, "and see how that the corn goes in.
yet saw I never, by my father's kin,
how that the hopper wags to and fro."
So obviously it moves back and forth, probably for exactly the reason mentioned above by DKFoster. Benwing (talk) 01:59, 3 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Backhauls

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Do hopper cars handle different commodities? For instance, does a car go from handling coal to grain? 119 20:19, 2 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Yes, but not in the method that you mentioned. There was an article in Trains Magazine a few years ago about coal and taconite on the Southern Pacific Railroad. The hoppers were loaded with taconite pellets in the Duluth, Minnesota/Superior, Wisconsin area, hauled west to somewhere in Colorado or Utah, then loaded with coal for the backhaul to the Midwest. I've got the article around here somewhere, but it's not handy right now. Grains are hauled in covered hoppers, and I haven't seen any restriction on which specific grains are loaded into which covered hoppers. slambo 20:39, Apr 2, 2005 (UTC)
Okay, what I intended to ask then is more: will a covered car regularly go from carrying fertiliser to grain, or grain to sugar, etc.? Contamination issues and so on. 119 21:19, 2 Apr 2005 (UTC)
A car that carries grain typically won't be used to carry inedibles. But, they are generally interchangeable between the different crops. I don't think sugar's carried in covered hoppers much anymore as it gets bagged, palletized and shipped in box cars. slambo 22:48, Apr 2, 2005 (UTC)
Thanks. 119 07:36, 3 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Just to add a correction: large shipments of sugar are moved in covered hoppers(think of loads for a candy factory). As for interchanging cargoes, a clean food shipment(grain) may be followed by a dirty shipment( fish meal). After delivering the meal, the car would be cleaned, and returned to service. A quick way to tell Food Hoppers, from chemical hoppers-look at the top. If you see troughs, it's a grain and food service hopper. if you see holes, it's for salt or chemicals. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.208.38.26 (talk) 20:40, 29 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

68.36.6.147 (talk) 21:49, 5 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]


Hopper car history - a small beginning...

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Source: http://home.earthlink.net/~carscoal/Coal_Cars_Promo.pdf

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It is clear that the information in the source file was selected from a published work, but that work is not cited in the file or on the website. The following is my summarization of material in the PDF file. -jm

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1896 – Carnegie Steel Company contracts with Keystone Bridge Works to create the first all-steel coal hopper, built of structural-steel components, with a capacity of 80,000 pounds. Numbered 5500, it was put to the test by the Pittsburg, Bessemer & Lake Erie Railroad.

1897 – Charles T. Schoen, owner of Schoen Pressed Steel Company, exhibits a prototype of a coal hopper made of pressed-steel components at the Master Car Builders Convention. It was designed in cooperation with the Pennsylvania Railroad.

Later in 1897, the PB&LE signed a production contract with Schoen Pressed Steel Company for 1,000 all-steel hoppers, 400 of Carnegie's design (each weighing 37,150 lbs), and 600 of Schoen's (each weighing 34,350 lbs). These first hopper cars were designed with 2 bays and were rated for loads of 100,000 lbs.

Circa 1900, PRR introduced hoppers of the GP and GPA classes, rated for 50 tons. The GPA was intended for hauling coke, a material lighter per volume than coal (28 lbs per cubic foot vs 46 for coal), so they created it with coke racks and taller sides. (It appears that there might have also been a GLA class…)

In 1909, the PRR introduced the H21, a larger, four-bay hopper originally intended for hauling coke. Over the next few years its load limitations were increased when it was produced with trucks of greater capacity, which enabled it to be used for hauling 140,000 pounds of coal.

Around 1912, the Norfolk & Western introduced a flat bottom gondola with drop doors, 6-wheel articulated trucks, and a 100 ton capacity that could withstand the physical stresses of being unloaded in its rotary car-dumping machine at its deep-water terminal at Lambert's Point near Norfolk, Virginia.

In 1920, the N&W introduced a new 100-ton flat bottom gondola with side-bearing trucks having conical roller bearings. These improvements enabled other older features (heavy center plates and truck bolsters) to be discarded, saving much car weight. This design eventually evolved into the GKd series.

Late in the 1950's, a number of manufacturers (such as Bethlehem Steel) began producing triple-hopper cars.

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68.36.6.147 (talk) 21:49, 5 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Open vs. covered

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Does "Hopper car" refer to all Hopper cars, both covered and uncovered, or only to uncovered ones? In other words, are covered Hoppers a subset of Hoppers, or an entirely different type? Propaniac (talk) 15:45, 14 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Covered hoppers could be considered a subtype of hoppers in general since covered hoppers are in their most basic form open hoppers with covers and sometimes additional unloading equipment (i.e. airslide hoppers), but they are treated as different types of cars in railway operations. Open-top hoppers (at least in North American practice) are more often used in unit train service, while covered hoppers frequently appear in mixed manifest freight trains. Since they are used differently, its logical to examine them as separate classes of equipment despite the similarities. Slambo (Speak) 18:36, 14 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
"Hopper car" does refer to all such cars. Slambo, above, does explain that the differences have to be considered in the article although the basic structure is the same. The cover is a not insignificant detail for those using the car, whether wanting the contents to not blow away or wanting to drop coal from an overhead conveyor into the car. -- SEWilco (talk) 18:45, 14 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Capacity?

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I would think an encyclopedia would have typical values for the capacity of train cars, including hopper cars. How many tons of coal does one hopper car typically carry, how many gallons does a typical tank car carry, how many cubic yards fills a typical gondola, etc.? I realize there are ranges and not exact values, but for the sake of discussion, what might be a round number? Thanks. 192.31.106.34 (talk) 19:50, 1 July 2009 (UTC)Bruce Tiemann[reply]

Due to the wide variety, a compete list of all capacities would be rather long. Suffice it to say (until someone can start such a list) that modern US railroad hopper cars range from under 2000 Cubic Feet capacity up to about 4800 CF. Capacity is limited by weight with most modern railcars limited to 100-110 US Tons overall weight. Shorter cars are used where the product is dense, larger cars are for less-dense product. Ken (talk) 16:43, 27 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
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