Gondolas

Early gondola cars typically had low sides. Their contents had to be shoveled out by hand and they took a long time to unload. As the railroad industry grew, a flat bottom gondola was developed, with lever operated chutes that allowed the gondola to be unloaded automatically from the bottom. The chutes would direct the contents of the gondola to the sides. Coincidentally freight cars were now constructed entirely from steel as the pulling force of locomotives tended to crush the older wood cars.