Gondolas were considerd by many people to be a lowly junk carrier and at the bottom rung of the stable of railroad freight cars

However, they made lots of money for the railroads, carrying practically anything and everything that would not fit in another type of car

Loads included acontainers with doors that could be locked and sealed, with the containers lifted into and out of the gondola: junk and scrap metal: vehicles: odd shapped machinery: bulk material such as coal, gravel, and ballast, and just about anything else you can imagine

Gondolas were used to ship coal to customers who did not have a coal unloading ramp (Coal unloading ramsp were elevated stuctures which allowed coal hoppers to dump coal out of the bottom of the hopper and into storage bins under the tracks on the ramp). Customers who received coal in gondolas had bucket cranes to unload the coal, or shoveled it out by hand

Gondola's were produced in two sizes by Lionel, short (8 inches in length) and long (9 9/16th inches in length)