Western Railroad Discussion > Its a bird.... Its a plane.... NO! ITS SUPERHOPPER!

What in the world ever became of ATSF's famed Superhopper? In case you are wondering, the Superhopper is/was ATSF's massive 5-unit articulated 2-bay-per-unit grain hopper car. It was introduced in 1991, but where is it now?

CYA DOWN THE LINE!
--Dash

Oh No! How did that happen! It posted twice! Please disregard whichever duplicate you didn't look at yet!

CYA DOWN THE LINE!
--Dash

The Super Hoppers are 5-piece articulated
covered grain hoppers. There were three
sets, ATSF 390000-390002, assigned class Ga-221.
All three still exist, and according to the
UP trace, all three are presently in Fresno, CA.
Last November, all three were also in the area -
I asked about them on another list and was told
that two were at an elevator in Kings Park, CA
south of Hanford, and the other was in Fresno.
They may well be part of a shuttle train set to
that elevator, but I don't honestly know. I made
a trip down to Kings Park, and once the peasoup
tule fog lifted, was able to find the cars and
take the following photo of ATSF 390000 in
November 2001:

http://atsf.railfan.net/ga221a.jpg

I saw these in Fresno Yard a few weeks ago, and more recently in front of the Zacky Farms plant where SR180 crosses over the UP between Fresno Yard and downtown Fresno.

Looks like these ATSF hoppers seem to always end up on UP Track. Here is the latest info:

Last train was a Transfer to UP, in Fresno.

ATSF 390000-390002

UP FRESNO,CA CORN 05/24 21:05 T-FRSUP 1-24D

Foamer

There was nothing wrong with Superhopper from an engineering standpoint. The problem was that it was (is) an expensive car, in what is typically a low-utilization service.

Grain cars average about 12 turns per year (versus dozens for unit coal gons and hoppers). What this means is that railroads want cars with the lowest possible price per unit of capacity. That certainly isn't an aluminimum, articulated car.

That's why only three were built.

Does that formula apply to the BN's 13 unit articulated coal cars?

Yes. And aluminum "bathtub" gondolas have a better net/tare ratio, as well as being cheaper.

rresor wrote:

> There was nothing wrong with Superhopper from an engineering
> standpoint. The problem was that it was (is) an expensive car,
> in what is typically a low-utilization service....

Obviously you shouldn't use a car like that in "loose-car railroading" fashion, but in a high utilization shuttle. Another problem was that to the customers, it was different. For some it didn't fit their facilities as normal cars did, for others it was just out of the ordinary. This is based on my brief "insiders" view during the early nineties. I find it interesting that the cars were still around a year or two ago. Are they still in the same area?