O VGN Ore Car

Why
are ore cars so short? Because the iron ore they carry is considerably
heavier than typical hopper loads like coal, so a short car of ore
fills the load capacity of its trucks. Ore cars, also called jennies,
were and still are a common sight in the Iron Range region of Minnesota
and nearby states, where they shuttle between mines and Great Lakes
ports. On the receiving end, jennies travel between ore docks and steel
mills in a number of states. While they’re commonly associated with
upper Midwestern ore-hauling roads, ore cars have in fact been rostered
by nearly 50 North American railroads, and at least a dozen have owned
significant numbers of jennies.
Until World War II, ore cars generally carried direct shipping ore:
ore that was rich enough in iron (60% or more) that it could be shipped
direct to steel mills as a raw material. By the end of the war,
however, the richer ore deposits had largely played out. Lower-grade
taconite, once considered a waste product of mining, became the raw
material of choice. Rather than being shipped as raw ore, taconite is
refined and rolled into small pellets containing about 65% iron. So for
more than half a century, the main payload of ore jennies has been
taconite pellets, as well as occasional loads of sand or gravel.

High quality, traditionally
sized RailKing Freight Cars provide detailed bodies and colorful paint
schemes for the O Gauge railroader. MTH makes an enormous variety of
RailKing Freight Cars, including many different car types and
roadnames. No matter what era or part of the country you are modeling,
RailKing is sure to have something for you.