Eastern Railroad Discussion > Coal car question

I thought I saw a few years ago where the Conrail bathgons were suppose to be phased out due to age also the NS top gons
Still see a lot of both these running around. Was this not true?

Gary

Posted from iPhone

The Top Gons are being retired, but there were a lot of them built (technically rebuilt from hopper cars) in the Roanoke Shops.

I remember them being built there. Back in the 80’s if I remember right

Gary

Jimbo Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> The Top Gons are being retired, but there were a
> lot of them built (technically rebuilt from hopper
> cars) in the Roanoke Shops.

Posted from iPhone

mully Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I thought I saw a few years ago where the Conrail
> bathgons were suppose to be phased out due to age
> also the NS top gons
> Still see a lot of both these running around.
> Was this not true?
>
> Gary
>
> Posted from iPhone

The rebodied Conrail tub cars were to be retired, and have been. These were the G52H, G52L and G52R classes of cars. Those cars were rebuilt using the centerframes of older triple hoppers built mostly in the late 60’s through the 70’s. As a result, most of the cars simply aged out of interchange service, while others began to experience failures either with the frames or the tubs themselves. Couple that with an influx of newer cars and the downturn in coal and it was pretty easy to rid the fleet of the rebody cars.

These cars should not be confused with the built new G52X Cromweld cars which began to arrive in the mid 90’s just prior to the CR split. These cars are mostly still running in decent untouched CR paint, and should stick around for at least another 10 years before the bodies may need to be addressed on them.

Scooter

Thanks

Gary

Posted from iPhone

FWIW bathtub gons suffered wretched corrosion from high sulful coal....repair rate was horrific....