Hopper cars are open top cars which carry loose material like copper ore, and are unloaded from the bottom.

This one was built by the Pullman Company in 1910 for the Ray & Gila Valley Railroad, to carry copper ore from the Ray mine to the processing plant in Hayden, Arizona. The company changed name and ownership several times over the last 100 years, but the car was never repainted. It eventually became the property of the Copper Basin Railway, where it sat abandoned near Hayden for many years.

Jake Jacobson, CEO of the Copper Basin Railway, donated it to the museum in 2007. It is remarkable that it remained lettered for the Ray & Gila Valley after all these years.

The Ray & Gila Valley Railroad ordered 100 of these 60-ton steel hopper cars from Pullman in 1910. They were designed by Frank Ingoldsby and licensed by the Ingoldsby Automatic Car Company of St. Louis. The slanted ends and slanted inner center divider let the material slide out easily through the 15-foot dump doors on the outer half of the floor on both sides. The doors could be operated manually by a 7-latch lever on each side, or with air assist, to dump material outside the rails. In addition, 7 square panels on the inner half of the floor could be opened via pull levers to empty material inside the rails.

The R&GV operated 6.5 miles from the Ray mine to Ray Junction on the Southern Pacific Railroad, and then, 12 miles farther south, it operated 2.5 miles from Hayden Junction to the mill and smelters at Hayden. Outgoing products went via the Southern Pacific to final destinations.

Painted on the side of the car below the Ray & Gila Valley name are the letters "N.C.C.CoRR," for one-time parent Nevada Consolidated Copper Company. The Ray & Gila Valley Railroad was incorporated on August 24, 1910 by the Ray Consolidated Copper Company which operated the Ray mine. The RCCC was succeeded by the Nevada Consolidated Copper Company in 1927, and was in turn succeeded by the Kennecott Copper Corporation in 1943. At that time the railroad became the Kennecott Copper - Ray Mines Division, and the R&GV was dissolved as a corporation on February 9, 1944.

Years later, the Ray mine operations were purchased by the American Smelting & Refining Company (ASARCO) in 1986. At that time the Copper Basin Railway was formed to take over the railroad including the Southern Pacific branch down to Magma Junction. The CBR now carries ore from the Ray mine to Hayden for processing, then takes the refined copper to the Union Pacific at Magma Junction. (The Union Pacific took over the Southern Pacific in 1996.)

When the car was donated to the museum, the Copper Basin delivered it to Magma Junction where it was picked up by the Union Pacific and brought to the museum′s Tumbleweed Park location in 2007.

	Photo of the car at Hayden, AZ
	Photo of the car at Hayden, AZ.
	Photo of the car as delivered to ARM in July 2007.
	Photo of the car as delivered to ARM in July 2007.

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