UNION PACIFIC #7801

Hopper Car

* * *


A self-clearing, open-top triple hopper, this durable veteran is typical of such cars, used to carry ore, sand, gravel, and coal.

Built by Pressed Steel Car Company, Mt.Vernon, IL; May 1949

UP #7801 was one of 1,950 Class H-70-1 hopper cars (#6000-7949) in Union Pacific's order #5894-C of November 13, 1947, built to Pressed Steel Spec. #3374, lot #10774 at a cost of $4,453.34 per car. They were to have carried the slogans "Serves All the West" and "Road of the Streamliners", but these were deleted from the order, saving $.59 per car! These offset-side hoppers' exterior vertical bracing is unique on Union Pacific cars. UP #7801 also has a one-of-a-kind horizontal brace on its left side, added later.

The all-steel welded car is 46'2" long over couplers, 10'8" high, has a 42'8" inside length, 10'0" inside width, and 2,810 cu ft of level cargo capacity. It originally had a 140,000 lb. (70 ton) capacity, 165,100 lb. load limit, and weight of 44,700 lbs. (22.35 tons). Car weights changed as parts were replaced, and because UP #7801's last weight lettering was unreadable when it was acquired by the museum, its present weight lettering of 44,900 lbs. (22.45 tons) was taken from a photo of sister car UP #7940. UP #7801 has Barber S-2 trucks by Standard Car Truck Co., and its three bottom-dump doors have Wine Railway Appliance mechanisms. It was painted Synthetic red with 10" yellow letters. The UP switched to five-digit freight car numbers on January 8,1959, and UP #7801 was renumbered UP #17801 in June 1959. A new 20" lettering style had also been adopted in 1956, but was not applied to this car.

UP #17801 was later retired and sold to the Southwestern Portland Cement Company at Victorville, CA. Numbered SWPC #34 and later SWPC #101, it was used as a ballast hopper at the cement plant, and on SWPC's 15-mile Mojave Northern Railroad to its quarry in the mountains, acquiring a thick coat of gray cement dust.

On May 17,1984 SWPC #101 was donated to the PSRMA. It was trucked to Fallbrook, CA, and loaned to the Mitchell Company as a ballast hopper in rebuilding trackage on the Naval Weapons Station Annex. In 1985 SWPC #101 and museum-owned DAFX #89429 were moved south on Santa Fe's Fallbrook branch and stored on the Marine Corps Base at Camp Pendleton, first at Stuart Mesa near I-5, and later in an industrial warehouse area. Taken to San Diego February 28, 1987 by the Santa Fe, they missed "Great Freight II" by a few hours. Moved to Matanuca, BC by the SD&IV, they were brought to Campo in March 1987 on the museum-operated "Great Freight II 1/2".

In late 1987 SWPC #101 was cleaned, repaired, repainted red, and renumbered UP #7801 in its original 10" yellow lettering. Due to a misreading of shadowed numbers on a photo of UP #7940 used as a model,UP #7801's capacity and load limit numbers were temporarily repainted 100,000 lbs. less than they should have been. UP #7801 is in operating condition, and is the museum's ballast hopper.

1991 Pacific Southwest Railway Museum Association. W. Schneider


Back to the Freight Car Roster

Return
to the San Diego Railroad Museum
This page last updated 2/24/99