Gondola (rail)

Because of their low side walls, gondola cars are also suitable for the carriage of such high-density cargos as steel plates or coils, or of bulky items such as prefabricated sections of rail track.

[2] Those cars were not widely used at first, because they could only be unloaded by workers shoveling out the cargo by hand, a slow and labor-intensive process.

[2] After the American Civil War, advances in technology, especially the development of steel, allowed new and larger gondola designs.

New gondolas were built with steel sides and frames, although wood was retained for flooring since it was flexible and cheap to replace.

These gondolas are side-tipping, so they often are used to carry rock or dirt to add to an embankment, rather than dump crushed-rock ballast between the ties.

A gondola car built by the South Australian Railways in the 1920s to an American Car and Foundry design
This covered gondola protects its cargo from exposure to moisture while in transit.
A bathtub gondola passing through Rochelle, Illinois , in 2005
A side-dump gondola on display at the US National Railroad Museum
Southern Pacific air-dump car (SPMW 5121), at the Southern California Railway Museum . The whole body of the car is tilted up by pistons in the vertical cylinders under the car. The sides of the car tilt down to be in line with the floor, enabling the load to flow out.