Need your opinion: Ore car load questions

George- I can't speak to prototypical loads but I've redone a few of my cars with real loads.

2 Menards cars- I guess iron ore?

MTH LIRR car- sand

I have 4 new RMT cars that will be updated soon too.

Bob

One thing you can try to get a better looking load (for the top two) is to pour a little black ink wash over the load; wait about 30 seconds; and then wipe off the excess on the tops and sides of the raised ore pieces so you're just leaving the ink in the cracks and crevices with just a little light weathering on the ore pieces.

I've always thought cottage cheese for the Lionel load. With coal loads Lionel has always provided a more realistic looking load than MTH but in this case no. For the MTH loads I painted them a satin brown color and then used a textured Floquil paint "dirt" (I think) light spray and was very happy with the effect.

The design and spacing of the ore dock hoppers was established about 170 years ago. The ore dock design drives the design of the ore car. No railroad or shipper would use an ore car if they did not have to. It is an obsolete design driven by the ore dock design. A modern car would be a larger volume if it did not have to unload on a ore dock. The only commodity that would be carried in an ore car is something that was going to be unloaded at an ore dock to be load into an ore ship. I believe that the iron ore products loaded into ore cars runs from reddish brown to almost black. Coal would never be loaded into an ore car as it is fairly light. Coal cars are usually in the 4000 cuft size car.

@David Johnston posted:

The design and spacing of the ore dock hoppers was established about 170 years ago. The ore dock design drives the design of the ore car. No railroad or shipper would use an ore car if they did not have to. It is an obsolete design driven by the ore dock design. A modern car would be a larger volume if it did not have to unload on a ore dock. The only commodity that would be carried in an ore car is something that was going to be unloaded at an ore dock to be load into an ore ship. I believe that the iron ore products loaded into ore cars runs from reddish brown to almost black. Coal would never be loaded into an ore car as it is fairly light. Coal cars are usually in the 4000 cuft size car.

An excellent observation. Also please remember just how REALLY heavy that iron ore, or Taconite, load is. Those "little" ore cars weigh about 100 tons when loaded. Thus, loading iron ore or Taconite into a "normal" two bay, three bay, or four bay coal caring hopper car would seriously exceed the weight capacity of such a car.