| Ortner built 23 of these tiny (1500 cubic feet) 105-ton covered hoppers for the Illinois Central Gulf in 1979. The cars are only 11 feet 8 inches high, so they are about three feet lower than the Railbox on the next track. Numbered 700550-700572, the cars were built to haul ilmanite ore from the Port of Gulfport about 20 miles to a new DuPont titanium dioxide manufacturing plant at Delisle, Mississippi. The ICG had to build a 13-mile spur from Delisle Jct. -- four miles north of the port -- to the plant, which is at the north end of Bay St. Louis. ICG retained ownership of these cars after this track was sold to MidSouth Rail in 1986, but the 19 existing cars were acquired by the Kansas City Southern after the KCS bought MSRC in 1994. They were repainted brown and became KCS 330000-330016, 330018, and 330019. All 19 were still listed in UMLER at the beginning of 2016.Titanium dioxide is a white pigment used in plastics, paints, paper, and textile fibers, as a food additive, and in many other materials that require whiteness, brightness and opacity. |