The following is a September 1997 Conrail press release promoting the company's new G52X coalporter and its steel construction. Versions of the release appeared in various industry news outlets. This version appeared in New Steel, which added information targeting their readership.
Hollidaysburg, PA - Conrail recently ordered the components for 600 stainless-steel coal cars from rail-car-manufacturer Johnstown America Corp.
Steel competes with aluminum in the rail-car market. Rail companies increasingly want aluminum cars because aluminum’s lighter weight allows greater shipping loads per rail car.
Cars carrying western coal typically are made from aluminum because of its weight advantage, says Jim Bauer, Conrail’s manager of equipment, planning, and performance. About 50 percent of the coal cars in the U.S. are made from aluminum.
But Conrail needed new coal cars to haul eastern coal. Eastern coal has high moisture levels and tends to freeze during the winter. Customers sometimes need to heat the rail cars to separate the frozen coal from the car. Heating methods include placing oil, gas, and electric heaters underneath the car itself.
Steel, although heavier than aluminum, can withstand heating temperatures better than aluminum, so it has remained the preferred material for hauling eastern coal. But the high sulfur content of eastern coal corrodes carbon steel. Shippers must replace carbon-steel coal cars every 17-20 years.
Conrail teamed with Carpenter Technology, Cromweld Steels, Johnstown America Corp., and fastener fabricator Huck Manufacturing to build a stainless-steel car that would last longer than a carbon-steel car. The companies produced two prototype cars in 1994.
Conrail has built 51 stainless cars; it will have the remaining 549 ready by the end of the year. Conrail owns 14,000 coal cars, all made from steel because of its eastern-coal market.
"We expect the stainless cars to last about 40 years before replacement," Bauer says. "Because the cars resist corrosion better, we also can use thinner steels."
The side of a carbon-steel car normally is 0.25 inch thick, while a stainless side can be as thin as 0.118 inch and still provide the needed structural strength. This can cut 10,000 pounds from the typical 63,000-pound weight of a carbon-steel coal car. "Stress tests indicate we could have made even thinner sides [with stainless]," Bauer says.
Johnstown America supplied the BethGon stainless-steel car kits to Conrail’s Hollidaysburg, Pa., assembly facility. BethGon refers to a patented car design with a deep, double-tub bottom bed that provides extra coal-holding space and better car stability. Johnstown America once was Bethlehem Steel’s rail-car division. Cromweld supplied the stainless steel for the car sides, Carpenter provided the steel for the car’s fasteners, and Huck fabricated the fasteners.
The car components that will contact coal—the sides, ends, slope sheets, and tubs—are all made from stainless. The rest of the car is made from carbon steel.
The coal will polish the stainless steel over time as it rubs against the steel. This creates a smoother, more "slideable" surface that will speed coal discharges by 30 percent compared with carbon cars, a Johnstown spokesman says. Johnstown used Cromweld’s patented low-chrome stainless for the 600 kits, but other U.S. suppliers can provide a similar steel.
If steel wants to penetrate the aluminum-dominated western-coal market, it must bring down the weight of its cars, Bauer says. Even the lighter stainless cars weigh 10,000 pounds more than the typical aluminum car.
Like the Ultralight Steel Auto Body project, steel and rail-car producers can examine rail cars as a whole unit and design them from scratch to cut weight and optimize rail-car bodies. "If steel wants to press its unique advantages and broaden its market, it will need to design a car with the productivity that western shippers associate with aluminum cars," Bauer says. "It is up to the steel industry to take the initiative."
The car purchase was part of Conrail’s regular capital-expenditure program. The company bought 1,800 cars this year, 200 cars in 1996, and 1,200 cars in 1995.
"A lot of people say we came up short in terms of capital spending and maintenance," Bauer says. "Nothing could be further from the truth."
Bauer hopes Conrail will buy more stainless cars in the future, but its pending purchase by Norfolk Southern and CSX could change spending philosophies.
Conrail G52X Roster
Many years ago, several contributors compiled this roster for Conrail's G52X Coalporters, which were all built in the late-1990's. They corrected many errors that had appeared in rosters published back then.
CR Series Class Build Dates
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507401-508000 G52X 07/97 - 08/97