US 19th century grain cars

[teddytoot]

Can somebody please give me an idea of what sort of cars were used to transport bulk grain at the end of the 19th century. I am more interested in other lines rather than the large scale Mid-west prairie ones. Here in the UK I have drawn a blank but assume, probably incorrectly, that closed hoppers had not appeared then.

Thankyou in advance.

 

[Dermmy]

Pre covered hopper era, grain mostly went in the humble boxcar. The density of the load meant the cars were only about one third to half full. Some cars had grain-proof doors, otherwise boards (or similar) were nailed across the inside of the door opening to help retain the load, latterly plastic sheet or liners served the same purpose...

Andy

 

[TweetsieDude]

I dought that plastic was used in the 19th centry. The 1800s had various cars to haul grain. During the civil war part of the 19th cent, they would use gondola's and box cars, but once they saw that the open gondola's were loosing the load when going down the line they used the box cars, after they too were losing the load, they seald them up with tar, cotton, any good calking matiral, and they would nail up boards along the side of the cars, as the 20th cent got here the railroads devloped specific kinds of cars to haul different types of goods.

 

[teddytoot]

Thanks for the replies. I did wonder if they used gondolas and covered the load with canvas sheets. I can see now how the covered hopper must have evolved from filling up boarded-up boxcars and somebody realising how much easier it would be to fill it through the roof and empty it through the floor.

 

[whitepass]

covered hopper must have evolved from filling up boarded-up boxcars

This is not how it evolved, it was first used to move things like salt that would react with water grain cars came into use some 20-30 years later.

 

[teddytoot]

Thanks Whitepass. That's the trouble of being a physicist and wanting to make a theory out of insufficient data!

 

[SR6900]

I've seen blueprints for bulk cars that are a steel hopper on the bottom and a wooden boxcar uptop.