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CN Coal and Sulphur Operations - 1
I
n this article, I take an in-depth look at the 4000 cu. ft. gon-
dola used by Canadian National Railways from the early
1970s up to the current time. Prior to switching to alumi-
num equipment, CN had well over a thousand leased or owned
instances of these cars in service during the 1970s, 1980s and
1990s. Sultran also had 360 cars of its own that operated on
the Canadian National and the Canadian Pacific.
Learn about coal and sulphur
operations, and the gondolas used to
haul these commodities ...
CN Coal and Sulphur Operations
in the Alberta Foothills
– Norm Skretting
Model Photos by
Timothy J. Horton,
remaining photos by the author
1. CN 199001 built
February 1970.
..
I am excited about the arrival of HO scale 4000 cu. ft. coal/sul-
phur gondolas from North American Railcar, and am eagerly
looking forward to running them on my model railroad, a loose
representation of the CN’s Clearwater Sub from the 1970’s to
the current time. I enjoy all of the years in between, but my
fondest memories are from the 1970’s and 1980’s when these
cars were the backbone of CN’s coal operations.
Coal Service
The 4000 cu. ft. gondola was the preferred car style of Candian
National for transporting coal from five Alberta mines to either
the west coast ports for export or to ports on Lake Superior
(Thunder Bay, Marmion Lake) for use by Ontario Hydro.
The first cars were built in 1970 for CN as CN 199000-series,
and the first eight in the series were built as double-rotary cars
with a rotating drawbar on each end. The cars had a capac-
ity of 263,000 lbs. and a light weight of about 58,000 lbs., giv-
ing them a load limit of approximately 205,000 lbs. These cars
could carry a cargo of 100 tons with a little room for overloads.
When the maximum capacity was increased to 286,000 lbs.,
all of the coal cars had the load limit increased by 23, 000 lbs.
(The SULX cars kept their original load limit).
The cars also had a load-empty feature that increased the brak-
ing capacity of the cars when loaded, similar to a retainer (2).
The purpose was to reduce the brake pressure when the cars
were empty in order to reduce the number of skidded wheels
while providing sufficient braking capacity when loaded.
With the beginning of unit coal train service and the promise of
other unit train operations such as sulphur, potash, and grain,
CN began a plant expansion program of extending sidings to a
minimum of 6050 feet in order to handle trains of 6000 feet.
MRH-Apr 2013
