Operator HO Scale Pullman-Standard Silverside Coal Gondola, Norfolk Southern/SOU

For decades, beginning in the 1950s, Southern Railway was regarded as the road of innovation. The “Silverside” coal gondola is only one example of the forward-thinking railroad.

Pullman-Standard designed the Southern’s first all-aluminum coal gondola in 1959. Delivery began in 1960 and a total of 750 cars were built. These cars were specifically built for unit train service, running coal from mines in southwest Virginia to various power plants in the southeast like Parrish, Alabama, and North Carolina’s Belmont and Catawba plants. These three massive coal-fired sites were the original destinations for these cars.

Designed to be lightweight with a 100-ton capacity, they could carry larger loads than standard coal hoppers. New cars were left in the aluminum silver color (earning the name “Silversides”, wearing Vermillion-colored lettering. In the late 1960s, some cars received green lettering on their sides. As the aluminum oxidized and weathered, the original lettering became very hard to read. Most (not all) cars were re-lettered with white SOUTHERN lettering and reporting marks through the 1980s. Then, well after the 1982 merger, cars began to sport the Norfolk Southern logo.

The Southern Railway practice of assigning cars to subsidiary roads applied to the “Silversides” as follows:

1000 – 1529 (530 cars) – Southern
1530 – 1689 (160 cars) – CNOT&P
1690 – 1739 (60 cars) – NO&NE
1740 – 1749 (10 cars) – AGS

The “Silversides” spent their entire career hauling coal in dedicated service. While aluminum-built cars were in their infancy in the 1960s, these cars proved their durability with 742 cars still in service at the time of the merger. Still running strong through the 1990s, the last of the fleet was finally retired in the early 2000s.