Green dot on sides of hoppers

Could anybody tell me what the green dot on hoppers represents? Not every one has it, but 1/10 or so. It appears to be some sort of identifying mark, but has nothing to do with the load.

If you could help me out here, please do!

Thanks!

Adriel wrote:Could anybody tell me what the green dot on hoppers represents? Not every one has it, but 1/10 or so. It appears to be some sort of identifying mark, but has nothing to do with the load.

If you could help me out here, please do!

Thanks!

funny you bring that up as I have also seen Yellow Dots and White dots on some Conrail coal Hoppers as well as some priviateley owned utilitay companys cars as well. I wonder if this has anything to do with marking cars that can hold 100+ tons insted of 85 or 90 tons?

I have also seen Yellow Dots on PRR Hoppers in magazines and here on the internet.

A yellow, blue or green dot in a black box indicates that a car was inspected for defective wheels they were making in the 70's. You will still see them once in a while on older cars. You are probably talking about something else though if its on a newer car.

This might not be the same thing, but I know BN & BNSF covered hoppers that are equipped with truck mounted braking systems(i.e. Wabcopac) have a yellow dot with a black slash through it applied one each end of the car above the truck.

On coal and sulphur cars a dot or stripe indicates which end has the rotary drawbar, painted on the same end as the rotary drawbar. You can't have two non-stripe/non-dot ends together when the train is dumped or you'll rip the couplers right off when you try to dump the cars.

Ok this is a vary bad shot but note the side panel of the PRR Car with the Big Yellow Dot on it I think this is what is in question. I would assume that these dots would apear in Green or White on some cars but then and again a yellow dot like this might fade out to a White color after a while.
http://www.rr-fallenflags.org/prr/prr671813l.jpg

Also note this Conrail Hopper with a Yellow dot next to the car number I have also seen these large dots on the top corner of some cars as well
http://www.rr-fallenflags.org/cr/cr496616adm.jpg

I managed to snap a shot of one...check it out!

http://s69.photobucket.com/albums/i61/V ... G_2350.jpg

They all look basically like this, only most are not applied as neatly.

scharnhorst wrote: Also note this Conrail Hopper with a Yellow dot next to the car number I have also seen these large dots on the top corner of some cars as well
http://www.rr-fallenflags.org/cr/cr496616adm.jpg

The Conrail Hopper does not have the same type of dot we're talking about, but it does have a circular logo for the car's leasing company or perhaps an interior lining application treatment.

I think the smaller dots on others cars we are refering to are lubrication and grease job indicators.

Among other things that CSX has done, they used to use some kind of code (using colored dots) for car/train classification purposes. I've only heard about the practice, but evidently they had cars class-coded as white dot, yellow dot and they were destined for certain trains. Usually, they were on box cars, for manifest trains.

Adriel wrote:I managed to snap a shot of one...check it out!

http://s69.photobucket.com/albums/i61/V ... G_2350.jpg

They all look basically like this, only most are not applied as neatly.

I don't know about anyone else, but this link takes me to YOUR user account, and since I don't know your password, I can't see the image. Can't figure out how you did it.......

I remember my Pappy saying the coal cars on the PRR w/ the yellow circle were supposeded to be hauling ash back. Most likely for each ten cars of coal the PRR had to give one free ash car coming back...He was always pointing out the MT spotted cars in the mt coal drags on the Bel Del as we rode up the Penna side for a Sunday outing...

Saw the picture, but there's no "dots" there. I'll snag a pic of a dot, up close. I remember them having info on them, regarding either the load, or how to remove the load. (something along the lines of "do not open hatches, car is self venting") I see them daily, will try to snag some

Its the green dot, just under the ID marks.

Looks different from the ones I was seeing. Those are usually 4 to each side of the car, spread down the length of the sidesill. That one isn't a "standard" type marking.

I was observing some more hoppers recently. I have seen some that have a red dot too!

Man this is bugging me!