Hart Gons in Use on the Pacific Electric
December 03, 2016
I'd mentioned in the past that the Pacific Electric had Hart W-50-3 gondolas running through the 1940's. This photo, from the November 1944 Pacific Electric employee newsletter (available from the Metropolitan Transportation Administration's archive website) shows a Hart gondola being used in ballast service in 1944. (Click through to the full newsletter; the article has several pictures on track improvements along the mostly-freight West Basin line.
The photo doesn't show the car dumping ballast; instead the caption reads "gravel train backs up and spreads dumped ballast". The crews used the Hart cars to dump a foot of gravel between the track. However, they still had to push the pile around to get it between the tracks. The temporary wooden boards at rail level (with undetermined bracing) looks awfully flimsy, but it must have worked!
The photo doesn't show the car dumping ballast; instead the caption reads "gravel train backs up and spreads dumped ballast". The crews used the Hart cars to dump a foot of gravel between the track. However, they still had to push the pile around to get it between the tracks. The temporary wooden boards at rail level (with undetermined bracing) looks awfully flimsy, but it must have worked!