Canadian Railroads > Freight Car Friday - Sulphur Cars in Black Canyon

Just to change things up a bit, here are four Sultran sulphur gondolas, all different, all shot in Black Canyon on June 24, 2018.
1. Unit sulphur train #716, at 1007, had a few varieties. This one, SULX 2289, has the yellow liner/coating, and no side sills, but beefy cross-members instead.
2. Ahead of it was SULX 3317, with the prominent side sills that are reminiscent of some of CP's coal gondola fleet. I imagine someone out there can shed light on the history of these cars. What drew my eye in the first place was the pale blue lining; I can't remember how many years it had been since I'd seen a sulphur train, and from an elevated vantage point, so this was new to me. Any comments?
3. At 1043, #417 came through with its mixed consist. It seems to me that a lot of CN mixed freights have a few sulphur gondolas, in this case (and in most cases) the aluminum ones; this example is SULX 4161. They've had the reporting marks changed; they've ground off the old ones rather than painting them over; a neat effect for modellers to try to reproduce. Does anyone know if this has all been in-house for Sultran, or have these been acquired on the second-hand market from someone else's coal or sulphur service?

---

---

---

4. To finish off, SULX 5137, with a different construction (check the ribs), re-lettering approach, and so on. If the model manufacturers co-operate and give you the variety, it's easy to make a sulphur train that's not all cookie-cutter.
Fred

---

When CP first started shipping flaked sulphur, they used part of their huge fleet of three bay open top bottom dump hopper cars.

When the cars got wet, the run off from the sulphur was corrosive, and the already elderly hoppers started to deteriorate even faster. CP told the sulphur producers that cars were close to the end of their useful life, and that the producers should provide their own cars. Sultrans was the result, a shipper owned transportation company.

Rotary dumpers were utilized at the unloading locations, reducing the numbers of moving parts on the cars.

A special coating was applied to the inside of the cars, one variety is light blue but I have seen white also.

Over the years, sulphur cars have evolved from steel construction to aluminum. Their design closely followed that of coal cars, and they have been manufactured by a variety of car builders.

Some of the steel cars operated by Sultrans were previously coal cars with CP and CN.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/17/18 11:58 by eminence_grise.