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Pennsylvania Railroad H21 Hopper

The Pennsylvania Railroad's H21 class of hoppers was originally designed as a 50-ton capacity coal coke car, but operators quickly saw the potential for them to be converted to standard coal service. After swapping out trucks and some minor structural reinforcement the 70-ton H21a was created.

The 21,738-car strong fleet saw extensive service on the PRR and associated lines from 1909 all the way through the Penn Central era. They were used in transportation of all kinds of ores and aggregates, but primarily coal.

hey why won't the car fill fully with iron ore? why is the capacity for iron ore lower???

Right, so the game indicates cargo with a unitless number - you have 18 coal or 18 iron ore. Ostensibly for bulk cargo, this is equivalent to one cubic meter.

Now in-game, every cargo has the same weight for some reason, probably the same reason that they all respond to time penalties the same and are otherwise almost entirely fungible. (the coal has been in the ground for a hundred million years, it won't go bad if it spends an extra day in transit, pay me!) 18 iron ore == 18 coal == 18 stone... and in fact every cargo has an identical unit weight except passengers.

In real life iron ore is anywhere from 4-8 times as dense as coal. If this car were filled to the top with iron ore, it would weigh something like 410 tons, well over its 70-ton limit, and probably crack in half. It would certainly ruin the track and collapse bridges. As such, I limited the loading to a more realistic amount. In actual PRR practice, these cars were usually loaded with a single scoop of ore at each end of the car.

Some of the problems with cargo weight can be remedied with PMV's Heavy Cargo Challenge though I haven't tested these cars with that mod yet.

I don't like that, make them fill up the whole way!

No.


Stats for Nerds:

Introduced: 1912, 1950, 1968 (PRR + N&W, PRR II, and Penn Central, respectively.)
Capacity: 50/4 = 12(ish), 70/4 = 17(ish) for the later cars, 24/4 = 6 for iron ore.
Max. Speed: 45 MPH
Weight: 22 tons

[t.co]