Hoppin' hoppers! 

Last post, we talked about gondolas. This time we'll look at hoppers. They were often used to carry the same types of material, but were larger. The first hoppers back in the days of early railroading, looked a lot like gondolas but with one significant difference. The bottom of the hopper had latched swing-open doors for rapid discharge of the load. Over time the door mechanism improved and the hopper became much larger. In the modern era, we now have rapid discharge hoppers with one long nearly car length doors as opposed to the four door configuration that was the standard over many years. On the OSR, we will use the historic four bottom door design. Typically a fifty ton capacity railcar. We'll be hoppin' on the hoppers soon. See you next post, omscaler