The gondola is an open-top car with a flat or slightly contoured floor and fixed or drop ends and sides. Unlike hoppers, gondolas are manually or mechanically unloaded because they have no bottom discharge. Mill gondolas serve steel mills continuously cycling between furnaces and rolling operations. Gondolas also haul scrap metal, pipe, lumber, and heavy industrial products. Modern gondolas are often 52 to 65 feet long and carry 100-ton payloads.
Heavy-duty, low-sided car built for steel mill service; often equipped with removable coil cradles or drop ends for structural steel.
Equipped with rotary-end couplers to allow the car to be inverted in a rotary dumper for unloading coal or other bulk material.
Gondola body with built-in saddle-shaped cradles to cradle steel coils upright and prevent them from rolling during transit.
Gondolas serve the steel industry as the primary equipment for moving semi-finished steel products, scrap, and structural shapes between mills, processors, and fabricators. They also handle pipe, lumber, and other commodities too heavy or awkward for boxcars.