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To add to Leo's remarks. Most industry up till after WWII used coal to power and also heat the plants. IF you attended my clinic at Rock Island and got the handout look at the inbound coal loading and also where it came from. And look at my Zephyr article in No. 59 Coal in 60 coal in to Thor Power Tool. No. 62 with the coal storage and the use of conveyors instead of the scoop to move the coal into Coal Storage bins which were all along the tracks in every town in America at one time. IF you were at the Meet in KC and on the rail trip you could get up close look at the storage buildings. And the latest 69 with the coal into the power house in Batavia and ash out. This would have been the same with any roundhouse. Coal in and ash from the
ash pit out to be used as fill and ballast. Many early houses and barns were prefabed (some by Sears and sawbuck) and shipped in gons for the receiver to unload and put up the buildings. And do not forget the Cucumber factories. Guess I better get to work on SA and BG. Steve in SC On Monday, January 26, 2015 10:41 PM, "qutlx1@aol.com [CBQ]" <CBQ@yahoogroups.com> wrote: I think I can shed some,light on the switching of gons from coal to other services. As late as 1980,when I worked in the BN Chicago regional office,one of my duties was to pull certain series of true open hoppers(with gravity gates,not flat bottom,high side gons or tub gons) from unit coal trains to ballast service in the spring and back to coal in the fall.
As to earlier years gons could be used in scrap,aggregate,sand,etc service when not needed for coal in the warmer months. As to leveling or equalizing the coal loads, a high percentage of coal was the retail trade. Most retail yards were not well capitalized and certainly wouldn't want to sit on inventory all summer. I know first hand from my childhood, my parents waited as long as they could before ordering that first fall coal delivery. Leo Phillipp __._,_.___ Posted by: STEVEN HOLDING <sholding@sbcglobal.net> __,_._,___ |