Re: 700 & 800 class drop bottom gons

Judging from the position in the consist and the appearance of the load I would say that this is one of the very rare occasions when the RGS did some ballast work on the line. As you pointed out, there were no towers or loaders that could use a dump unload so the major use of these cars was hauling cinder ballast for the line. There are numerous photographic evidence of the drop bottoms being run, most I recall are on the south end probably for ballast dumps along the ever washing out Dolores River, but there is usually just one in the consist rather than the long strings of high sides seen in coal service.