Gondola cars with solar panels on them??

[Paradise275]

My friend saw a whole bunch of Herzog gondola cars (all freshly painted) and the all had a pyramid of small solar panels on each end. What would be their purpose?

Rick

[RockGp40]

I read about these in Railway Age awhile back. If memory serves, they power the gates on open ballast hopper cars. As a train pulls these cars down a line, preplanned GPS coordinates tell the train where to dump the stone at speed.

[C855B]

They power the electronics to control the gates, which are air-actuated. "At speed" is a slow walking pace at best. The times I have seen them used, the gates were actuated by track workers pressing buttons on a small control panel on the sill.

[Chris333]

CSX has orange hoppers like this.

[RockGp40]

They power the electronics to control the gates, which are air-actuated. "At speed" is a slow walking pace at best.

Actually, according to the website, they can unload at 20 mph. Check it out:

Www.hrsi.com/services/plus-train/

[C855B]

Interesting. That would be pretty dangerous in anything other than the most isolated and controlled circumstances. I've seen these (or similar) cars used several times, and it's always attended, and at a walk.

[Robbman]

That's only for shoulder ballasting, and even then it's more like 'maaaaaaybe 20mph'.  Haven't seen a center dump trainset in action, but there's no way it could do 15 dumping down the center... 10 at best... still much faster than walking speed.

[Chris333]

Ones I mentioned earlier:

[mu26aeh]

Looks like I'm going to have to upgrade my ballast train. 

20151101_183055 by Adam Henry, on Flickr

[Chris333]

I'm sure you could model it with solar panel photos.

[mu26aeh]

I'm sure you could model it with solar panel photos.

I'm already on it.  MicroScale does solar panel decals.  Added to the "to-do" list.