3391cf

According to the January 1980 Official Railway Equipment Register (ORER), L&N 193000-193199 are 46'0" long inside, 49'9" long outside, 10'7" wide, and 11'11" high.  181 cars remained in service. 

Note that inside length is measured between the end sheets, but our plastic cars have thicker walls so you have to factor that in.  Likewise, outside length is usually measured between the pulling faces of the couplers, but that does always translate well with our couplers.

I agree these look like Bethlehem quad hoppers but I think they are triples and I'm not sure who built them.  The ORER does not distinguish between triples and quads.

Color is "oxide red" and looks to me like classic Floquil Zinc Chromate Primer.

Scott Chatfield

BSC 3391

There are currently no BSC 3391s available, so what would be the closest model?

-Scott

Bachmann

Bachmann's 100-ton Bethlehem triple is based on a Reading prototype but is probably the closest out-of-the-box model.  It has the straight slope sheets and tall end sheets of this L&N car.  I don't think Bachmann has ever sold it decorated for L&N though.

Compare this design to the far more common 3433cf triple hopper modeled by Bowser, which has "bent" slope sheets and shorter end sheets.  The side panel widths are more obviously different on the 3433.  L&N also had 3433s.

(The 100-ton 3433cf triple hopper, often called the "Beth Triple", was an update of the so-called "committee car", a 70-ton design.  By far the biggest buyer of "committee cars" was the Pennsy, getting about 14,000 of their H39 class.  The 3433 is better known to Pennsy fans as the H43, but it was also built in large numbers by the C&O's Raceland Shops and N&W's Roanoke Shops.)

L&N painted some hoppers orange for US Steel service between a mine in Kentucky and Gary, Indiana, but the car above doesn't seem to be painted the same orange.

BTW, the Reading owned both Bethlehem 3433s and the slightly larger version modeled by Bachmann, but they had different lettering.  Bachmann being Bachmann has sold their version lettered as a 3433 while Life-Like, who made a train set-quality 3433 back in the '80s, painted it in the larger car's scheme.  Naturally.....

Scott Chatfield

orange hoppers

Thanks for the info Scott. Penn Central ran a ULG train up the Fort Wayne Branch aka the old GR&I. I came  across some photos that were taken in Winchester, In that showed a PC unit on the head end followed by 2 DT&I units and an Ann Arbor unit pulling the orange L&N hoppers. I was under the impression it was going to Michigan. I dont think they would have used the DT&I and Ann Arbor power if it was just going to Gary.

-Scott

ULGs

I thought ULG stood for US Steel, Loads, Gary.  Loaded at Lynch, Kentucky, so maybe the L stood for Lynch.

Of course, you're talking about Penn Central.  The train could be lost....

Scott Chatfield

SLS Repaint

That's a 1970 product of Bethlehem Steel that was repainted at SLS (South Louisville Shops) during January 1975.  It was delivered in classic L&N unit train orange with black lettering but was part of a group of cars rebuilt after wreck damage.  I used the Bachmann car to model this about 20 years ago while playing with a new Alps printer.  The L&N Historical Society offered up this series of hopper based on the Con-Cor 100-ton car even longer ago.  In this rather dusty slide I shot of my efforts, you can see the slope sheet differences between the Con-Cor and Bachmann versions.  Not perfect but the Bachmann is much closer as a 3,391 stand-in.

The prototype car here was shot in Tullahoma, TN in June 1978 so it is certainly not in Steel Train service at this point. That exact slide is featured in Steve Johnson's excellent L&N Freight Equipment book.

To be nit picky, the Gary trains did not originate at Lynch during this time.  In 1952, US Steel broke ground on a massive coal washing plant in Corbin next to the L&N's East Yard.  Once completed, all coal mined at Lynch was moved to Corbin, dumped, cleaned, blended and then reloaded and sent to the Coke Works in Gary. At Lynch proper, coal from several different mines in the area were all shipped from the Lynch #1 tipple, either blended on site or separated by car load for Corbin to blend post cleaning.  In 1972, US Steel opened a new deep mine in Cumberland, KY known as #37 internally but Lynch #2 to the L&N.  Again, different grades were sent to Corbin for cleaning/blending/shipping.

In mid-1977, a major upgrade to the Corbin plant was completed that included 3 raw coal concrete silos, 2 clean coal silos, a rotary dumper and a unit train loadout.  Prior to this, all the Gary-bound coal was loaded in 6-car cuts in an agonizingly slow process, then assembled into 72-car trains for nightly movement north by L&N crews.   In 1984, Arch took over operations of the Cumberland and Corbin facilities and then the remaining USX Lynch mines in 1989.  A new prep plant known as Cave Branch was constructed above the Lynch #2 facility and its associated loadout called Lynch #3.  Arch shipped utility coal from Lynch #3 and met coal to Corbin from Lynch #1 & #2.  In 1990, Arch upgraded Cave Branch to produce met coal and soon after the Corbin plant was closed along with Lynch #1 & #2.  At this point, the USX-bound met coal for Gary actually originated at Cumberland, KY albeit Lynch #3 to the railroad. After Arch closed down the #37 mine in the mid-1990's, the place sat idled until Alpha Natural Resources reactivated the Cave Branch prep plant during 2011 and built yet another batch loadout in Cumberland, this one called Lynch #4.  Alpha sold out to Revelation Energy and Blackjewel which just a few years ago declared bankruptcy and had miners famously blocking a CSX train from leaving Cumberland until they received their last paychecks.

In what has to be rare these days, all four of the "Lynch" loadouts are still standing as well as the 1977-built loader in Corbin.