AZL - 905359-1 - Open Hopper, 3-Bay Ortner Rapid Discharge - Seaboard Coast Line - 2-Pack

Specific Item Information: Road Numbers: 165250 & 165272

Prototype History: Ortner's team of engineers created the rapid-discharge door system in the early 1960s.. Ortner rapid discharge cars are designed primarily for handling aggregates. They are the best car on the market for this type of commodity. The 60 degree slopes sheets provide for a fast clean unloading of commodities like sand and gravel without using a car shaker. Unfortunately the ARR the gravel season only lasts 4-5 months due to the weather. These cars have a cubic capacity of only about 2,000 cubic feet (plus or minus 10%). So they only can handle 60-65 tons of coal when used in coal service in the winter as much of the ARR fleet started doing when the Seward coal move started. But they weigh nearly as much as a standard hopper so they are not very efficient cars for coal handling.

These cars have long platforms on the ends and a relatively short car body. This is a major pain for loading in motion like is done with the Usibelli tipple and the current gravel terminals in Anchorage. It is really easy to start the loading early or end late in trying to fill the car as full as possible and spilling material on the end platforms. Unloading a train of rapid discharge cars takes 30 minutes to an hour as opposed to four hours or longer for other unloading systems.

Road Name History: The Seaboard Coast Line Railroad (reporting mark SCL) is a former Class I railroad company operating in the Southeastern United States beginning in 1967. Its passenger operations were taken over by Amtrak in 1971. Eventually the railroad was merged with its affiliate lines to create the Seaboard System in 1983.

At the end of 1970 SCL operated 9230 miles of railroad, not including A&WP-Clinchfield-CN&L-GM-Georgia-L&N-Carrollton; that year it reported 31293 million ton-miles of revenue freight and 512 million passenger-miles.

The Seaboard Coast Line emerged on July 1, 1967, following the merger of the Seaboard Air Line Railroad with the Atlantic Coast Line Railroad. The combined system totaled 9,809 miles (15,786 km), the eighth largest in the United States at the time. The railroad had $1.2 billion in assets and revenue with a 54% market share of rail service in the Southeast, facing competition primarily from the Southern.

On November 1, 1980, CSX Corporation was created as a holding company for the Family Lines and Chessie System Railroad. In 1983 CSX combined the Family Lines System units as the Seaboard System Railroad and later became CSX Transportation when the former Chessie units merged with the Seaboard in December 1986. Effective January 1, 1983, the Seaboard Coast Line Railroad became Seaboard System Railroad after a merger with the Louisville and Nashville Railroad and Clinchfield Railroad. For some years prior to this, the SCL and L&N had been under the common ownership of a holding company, Seaboard Coast Line Industries (SCLI), the company's railroad subsidiaries being collectively known as the Family Lines System which consisted of the L&N, SCL, Clinchfield and West Point Routes. During this time, the railroads adopted the same paint schemes but continued to operate as separate railroads.

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Brand/Importer Information: AZL is the leader in North American Z scale locomotives and rolling stock. Since 2000, AZL has released a vast variety of freight, passenger and locomotives. AZL continues to push the boundaries of Z scale with amazing details and incredible performance. No matter if you are looking to run steam, or the most modern diesels, AZL has something for you.