Re: try again: barrel transfer

The barrel transfer used steel cables that wrapped around the high side gons as the barrel rolled over. This is the main reason the high side gons were rebuilt in the mid-20s as this was very hard on the cars. Look at the remaining cars that have not been rebuilt and you can often see where the cables damaged the top boards. You can see the marks of the cables on some of the cars. The D&RGW considered several options before having the barrel built. They had been using ex-Crystal River dump cars, but they leaked coal all over the right of way. There were not enough drop botton gons in the 700 and 800 series to handle the Crested Butte and Baldwin coal traffic. The Monarch limestone traffic did not really amount to much until 1929. The Grande considered building steel cars like the EBT, but the costs were too high.
The D&RGW tried running some of the 700 and 800 drop bottom gons through the barrel, but it practically destroyed those cars. That is why you see photos of both high side and drop bottom gond on the Crested Butte and Baldwin branch lines in the 30s and 40s. The coal for CF&I in Pueblo went out in high side gons through the barrel, also coal for the smelters in Leadville. Coal for the D&RGW and for local consumption was shipped in high side gons. The D&RGW even shipped a lot of Baldwin coal to Alamosa and point south in box cars.