G4 40 foot GS drop bottom gondola, Mineral Red

HO scale, with trucks and magnetic couplers.

Six car numbers available.

All steel drop bottom gondolas, like this InterMountain model, with doors hinged at the center and discharging their load outside the rails, were introduced by Pressed Steel Car Company in 1906. By 1910 the basic design had evolved to the 40 foot inside length with sixteen drop doors that would characterize such cars for decades. This design, known as General Service. was ARA/AAR car type GS and GN car type code G4.

Drop bottom gondolas were the favorite type of car for transporting coal on many western railroads including the Great Northern. Most Great Northern coal originated at Superior for distribution to retail coal dealers in Minnesota, the Dakotas, and Eastern Montana. They were also used to transport all manner of commodities such as: sand, gravel, sugar beets, and pulpwood logs.

Great Northern was slow to adopt all steel drop bottom gondolas, making its first purchase of 250 cars in 1918. Purchases in 1922, 1927, and 1929 brought the total steel fleet to 1,200 cars, well below competitors NP, MILW and CNW.

In 1937 GN purchased 500 cars 75500-999, the only series built with peaked ends and the final series built with flat, as opposed to corrugated, ends. The flat ends were reinforced with two horizontal ribs on each end. The bottom part of the side sheets of this series of cars turned inward to become side slope sheets, leaving a series of visible recesses about 16 inches tall along the bottom of each side.

The peaked ends were removed, the side slope sheets were removed, and new side plates were added to eliminate the original side sheet recesses during the early 1950s, a project completed in 1953. Inside height was 5’ 1 ½” and cubic capacity was 1932 cubic feet, level full. Nominal capacity was 100,000 pounds.

This model is painted in series GN 75500-999, with flat, as opposed to peak ends, and with full height vertical side sheets, which is correct after the modifications of the early 1950s. The car is painted in the scheme applied between 1948 and 1956. Some GN drop bottom gondolas carried this paint scheme into the BN merger.

The model fills an important place in the Great Northern’s car fleet, and is worthy of use on any operating model railroad. That said, it is a mass-produced car not based on a GN prototype. The obvious corrugated ends which this series of GN cars did not have. The eye-catching flaw is the use of side ladders. GN gondolas were all equipped with grab irons, which is an easy modification for the modeler. The final obvious visual anomaly is that the model has the door opening and closing mechanism exposed for the entire length of the car, while on all GN cars the mechanism is obscured by a metal plate across the panel between the truck center and the ends. To increase prototype fidelity, thin styrene can be applied to cover the exposed operating mechanism on both ends of the car. The final possible touch would be to scribe the side sheets to represent the welding on of early 1950’s vertical side sheet pieces, but that could introduce paint matching issues.

This car is the only Great Northern 40 foot drop bottom gondola available. It fills an important niche in the Great Northern’s fleet, and in your fleet.

Run them as they are or fix their minor flaws. Come and get ‘em!

See also Reference Sheet 364 and Modelers Pages 88 and 89.

The prototype photo is from 1922 purchase and shows paint and lettering scheme in effect at that time.