Lite and Narrow Column - 6
steel cars in their own shops, 840-869. It isn’t clear if the EBT
licensed the design from PSC or just went ahead and cop-
ied them. The first 10 cars were a bit top-heavy so the EBT
stretched them to 28’ 2” which became the standard hopper
length for the railroad.
The following year, 1915, the EBT refined the design of the
three-bay hopper which became the standard hopper car for
the railroad. The two-bay hoppers stayed in their configuration
until the railroad completed the construction of the three-bay
hoppers in 1927. When that occurred, the railroad began to
rebuild the 1914 order to the three-bay configuration, leaving
only the 10 original cars as two-bay cars. In time these cars also
received modifications, with four of them receiving side-dump
doors and three receiving clamshell doors for slag service. The
railroad converted four of the cars to three-bay cars in the mid-
1940s. Although heavily rusted, these cars are still in existence
in the Mt. Union yard.
7
7. Steel hopper car 809 with clamshell hoppers. The high
sulfur content of the Broad Top coal causes the heavy
rusting of the cars. Photo courtesy of BHI Publications.
MRH-Dec 2014
