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VRY hopper

Voodoo Railway Sand Hopper.

Okay, so it was originally going to only be temporary, but I figure no harm in leaving it up.

Starting in the 1970's, the Voodoo railway began to replace its fleet of two bay open hoppers with something that they felt would work better. That's a nice way of saying that the old open hoppers had largely started to rust away, and parts were becoming scarce. In an effort to replace them, the Voodoo purchased twenty four covered hoppers. The hoppers were painted an oxide brown, and unique among most railroads, in that they were never actually numbered. Typically, they were run in two trains of twelve. Though twelve car trains seem short for most railroads, given that they're carrying dredged sand, rocks, and water (mud really) anything more tended to be too heavy.

Sometime in the 1990's, four of the cars were repainted into an experimental paint scheme, with one end painted bright yellow. The idea being that these cars would be located on the ends of the train in place of a caboose. (not that the railroad ever used one to begin with).

By 2000, the cars had gone through a minor rebuild, and were operated in pairs, semi-permanently coupled together. There was some talk as to their replacement, with tank cars being considered, as well as converted boxcars, and even larger aluminum hoppers.