Coil car

Content sourced from Wikipedia, licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.

Coil cars are specialized railroad cars designed to carry rolls of sheet metal, especially steel. They’re a type of gondola, but they don’t look like a typical gondola. Before coil cars existed, coils were carried in open or covered gondolas on ends or cradles, which caused load shifting, damage, and difficult loading and unloading. Because so much sheet metal is moved by rail, dedicated coil cars began to appear in the 1960s, with early examples like the Pennsylvania Railroad G40 and G41 built in 1964–65.

The body of a coil car is a trough or a set of troughs, usually running the length of the car (though transverse layouts exist). They are made of steel and lined with wood or other material to cushion the load. Coils sit on their sides in the troughs with the core horizontal, and stops across the trough help prevent shifting. Some coil cars are open on top, while others have hoods to protect the load from the weather. Covered cars use either a pair of hoods or a single hood. Each hood has a center lifting point, and brackets on the top corners let the hoods be stacked when not in use. The hoods are largely interchangeable, so it’s common to see a car with mismatched hoods.