“The EBT in the Iron Age,” March-June, 1990. While focusing on
the East Broad Top, the series also gives an insight into railroad
operations of the late 19th and early 20th centuries where
equipment was changing almost daily as demands for more
capacity resulted in heavier tonnage and larger locomotives.
The dumps
The first hopper cars purchased for the East Broad Top were
20 four-wheel cars in June, 1873. Used for construction of the
railroad, an additional 20 four-wheel cars joined in 1874. The
East Broad Top referred to these as “dumps,” the same as they
called the coal hoppers of the time. On other railroads they
named this design “buck jimmies” for the way they rocked and
rolled along the tracks due to their rigid trucks and the rough
track of the time. Very little data exists on these cars, but spec-
ulation exists that they were one of three possible four-wheel
2
2. Typical four-wheeled car from the late 1800s. This
is a one-ton car as modeled by Grandt Line in O
scale. Photo courtesy of Grandt Line.
