Do hopper cars handle different commodities? For instance, does a car go from handling coal to grain? 119 20:19, 2 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Yes, but not in the method that you mentioned. There was an article in Trains Magazine a few years ago about coal and taconite on the Southern Pacific Railroad. The hoppers were loaded with taconite pellets in the Duluth, Minnesota/Superior, Wisconsin area, hauled west to somewhere in Colorado or Utah, then loaded with coal for the backhaul to the Midwest. I've got the article around here somewhere, but it's not handy right now. Grains are hauled in covered hoppers, and I haven't seen any restriction on which specific grains are loaded into which covered hoppers. slambo 20:39, Apr 2, 2005 (UTC)
Okay, what I intended to ask then is more: will a covered car regularly go from carrying fertiliser to grain, or grain to sugar, etc.? Contamination issues and so on. 119 21:19, 2 Apr 2005 (UTC)
A car that carries grain typically won't be used to carry inedibles. But, they are generally interchangeable between the different crops. I don't think sugar's carried in covered hoppers much anymore as it gets bagged, palletized and shipped in box cars. slambo 22:48, Apr 2, 2005 (UTC)
