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Let's see the bottom insides of your gondolas; I need idea. General discussion
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Super User 7,332 posts Deemiorgos Super User 7,332 posts
Deemiorgos

My gondolas is just too clean. I have no idea how to to the bottom.

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cslewis Regular poster 363 posts
cslewis

Well now.....

Dee,

 From what I've read on here, most RR's use a rust color on the insides of cars like these. As you just made a delivery with it perhaps a few small shots of dry brushed silver on the deck of the car, to show where they might have rubbed on the deck. Followed by a shot of dull coat.

 

Charlie
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blindog10 Prolific poster 3,308 posts
blindog10

wood floors

Back in those days many gondolas had wood floors, especially "mill" gons like your model, so look at your model before proceeding. The metal insides were usually painted. Now how long that paint lasted was a function of what service it saw. Mill gons were not supposed to be used for rough service (scrap, coal, or gravel) but over time they got more beat up. Unpainted gon interiors were a later thing, perhaps starting in the '60s. Scott Chatfield
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David Husman dave1905 MRH Author 9,767 posts
David Husman dave1905

Mill gons

Mill gons were used for any open top load, they were definitely used for coal (as a matter of fact, when I worked in Kansas around 1980 gons were called "coal cars" by the crews).  When I worked in Texas, there were 3 go to cars for aggregates, short hoppers, ore jennies and mill gons.  Virtually all metallic scrap is moved in gons of some form.

Gons can have a wood floor in which case they would be weathered like a flat car deck.  Greys and tans on the boards.  Washes of dark colors to bring out the grain and board detail.

Gons can also have a steel floor, they were painted the color of the car and where they were scraped (and that was frequently) they would rust.  So various rust color oversprays and weathering powders would be appropriate.

I know people hate it when people tell them to check Google,  but Googling "railroad gondola car images".  You will find hundreds (at least) of pictures of gon interiors.

Dave Husman

Visit my website :  https://wnbranch.com/

Blog index:  Dave Husman Blog Index
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grenadier1943 Super User 141 posts
grenadier1943

Gondola weathering article

Deemiorgos, look in the March 2012 issue of MRH.  Good article on making a gondola look rusted and beat up.

Mike

Chessie WM

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Read my blog
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PennCentral99 Regular poster 355 posts
PennCentral99

How about some Prototype Images....

MG_9908i.jpg MG_9912i.jpg MG_9913i.jpg MG_9914i.jpg 

Terry

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Sin City Terry          Inspired by Addiction          My YouTube Channel
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PennCentral99 Regular poster 355 posts
PennCentral99

One I'm Working On....

Still need to add some color variations and debris

IMG_2016.JPG 

Terry

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Sin City Terry          Inspired by Addiction          My YouTube Channel
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blindog10 Prolific poster 3,308 posts
blindog10

good images of modern steel floor gons

But the OP's gon is a transition era wood floor gon (near as I can tell). As Mr. Husman wrote, the floor would be unpainted wood, weathered as appropriate. The boards in gondola floors didn't get replaced as often as flatcar floor boards, so an older gon could have a pretty ratty floor. But the OP's gon looks pretty new, so the boards should be tannish grey, or greyish tan.... definitely darker than what I see in the photo though. Scott Chatfield
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Russ Bellinis Prolific poster 3,335 posts
Russ Bellinis

When the shop I worked out of was in L.A.

We were in Southcentral, the company behind the shop made tanks, both pressure and non-pressure.  They received three gons of sheet metal and "shapes" ie-angle iron, channel, square tube, etc.  They would empty the gons immediately and one would go back to the railroad.  All cut offs were thrown back into the empty gons, and sent back as scrap when fresh loads of metal came in.  I was not able to look into the gons to see what the floors looked like, but they were in pretty decent shape when delivered, so I expect that they were all steel cars rather than the mill gons with wood floors.  An all steel car wood have any paint worn off in short order I would imagine shortly after it went into service.  Since any fresh load would probably knock off any rust, I doubt if they would get much rust build up, but rather would have a kind of rusty patina.
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blindog10 Prolific poster 3,308 posts
blindog10

none on hand

It seems the several wood floor gons I've built are all in service on friends' layouts, so I don't have any handy to photograph. I shot a couple of my steel floor gons and the subtle color variations I used don't show up well in the pics. Scott Chatfield
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blindog10 Prolific poster 3,308 posts
blindog10

evolution of the mill gon

Mr. Husman's comment about Mopac crews calling mill gons "coal cars" is true and something that drove the owners of mill gons nuts. At the Southern we tried to put junk in junker gons and mill products in mill gons. But as time went on most plain mill gons of our era trickled down into scrap, gravel, and/or MofW service. Such is the natural life cycle of a gon. But when they were new, mill gons were a precious commodity to roads that served steel mills and foundries. In the first decades of the 20th Century the northeastern roads, especially the Pennsy, NYC, and B&O, built or bought thousands of tight bottom steel gons for this service and really tried to keep in that service. On the othrr hand, other coal hauling roads saw _any_ gon as a coal car, and the western roads didn't want specialized gons in the first place. So as time passed three basic types of gons came to dominate the type. This coincided with the structural evolution of the steel gondola from a flatcar with high sides to something more like an open-top boxcar, a process that occurred in the '20s and '30s. The western roads especially favored the "general service" gon, AAR type GS, which were usually in the 42-46 foot range and had drop doors in their floors so they could haul anything that didn't need protection from the weather. Their flexibility was also their drawback since they were heavy and had high centers of gravity. Also, moving parts (the drop doors) break. Roads that needed gons to haul coal, sand, and gravel to customers that didn't have raised unloading tracks favored low-sided 40-42 foot gons. This includes the Pocahontas coal roads and the southeastern roads. Those built after 1930 generally did not have drop doors but they could be used to haul mill products if they were cleaned out first. Lastly, there were mill gons. In the '30s several roads built 46-to-48 foot tight bottom gons with drop ends to haul long structural shapes, pipes, etc. They had wood floors both to protect the load from being scraped or scratched and to make it easier to secure dunnage and blocking. They also usually had fold-down "stake pockets", square loops of wire hinged from the insides of the car. By 1940 the railroads and builders had basically standardized the mill gon into two sizes, a standard-width 52'6" gon and a narrow-width 65'6" gon. Thousands of mill gons were built in the '40s and '50s. By 1960 most Class One railroads had at least a few hundred. It's those drop ends, wood floors, and stake pockets that made mill gons easily damaged if diverted to other ladings, so their owners tried to keep them out of the clutches of roads that thought of all gons as coal cars. They weren't always successful. There was a subset of the mill gon called a billet gon. Iron and steel billets (and blooms and ingots) are often loaded hot, so you can imagine why these cars had steel floors and fixed ends. They're loaded in the car loose, so you need a tough car. Sound familiar? Yes, the basic billet gon became the post-1960 mill gon. If you see a mill gon with most of the paint burnt off the sides above the floorline you're looking at a billet gon. 85-89 foot flatcars built after 1960 started to handle the oversized loads that formerly traveled in drop-end gons, so that feature fell out of favor (two less moving parts that will fail eventually) and less need for wood floors and stake pockets meant modern mill gons could be built tougher and simpler. Specialized variations like coil and covered gons were built and their special fittings (and computerized tracking) kept them away from scrap/coal/gravel loads. Over time many older mill gons were rebuilt with steel floors and fixed ends or had their drop ends welded closed. While some still hauled mill products most worked out their remaing years (40-year limit if built before 1974) in scrap, demolition debris, or "dirty dirt" service. Starting with the big Railgon orders of 1980, pretty much all "mill gons" have been used in any of these services from Day One. They can even survive Mr. Husman's boys using them to haul coal, although that's rare anymore. Scott Chatfield
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Deemiorgos Super User 7,332 posts
Deemiorgos

Thank you all for such

Thank you all for such informative posts.

It's been quite some time since I've modeled a wood floor on a car, and it was a flatcar. I think I'll be able to come up with a look of an unpainted ratty floor. I'll experiment first on a scrap of styrene.

 
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Deemiorgos Super User 7,332 posts
Deemiorgos

I forgot about the floor on

I forgot about the floor on my Funero& Camerlengo gondola, which I didn't put together. 

I think I'll use this to an extent for a reference along with some prototype photos hopefully I can find on the net of flat cars with ratty wood floors.

IMG_7072.jpg 
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