Prior to the opening of the Scranton Division in 1890, the O&W maintained a modest fleet of 15· and 25-ton coal cars, used mainly for transporting D&H coal from Sidney to Oswego. With the opening of the Division, a large fleet was required to handle the coal that began to flow out of the Lackawanna valley. Between 1889 and 1895, over 4100 cars were added to the roster. The first group of cars, Nos. 1OOO1 to 11500, were relatively small 25-ton cars. Beginning in 1891, the larger 30ton cars shown in the drawings on the following pages were purchased. A tabular list of the series and builders is given on this page.
   As originally built, the cars were all-wood and employed both linkand-pin couplers and handbrakes. As the years passed, a steady stream of irnprovements was made. Automatic couplers replaced the dangerous link-and-pin arrangement as the Safety Appliance Act of 1893 was implemented. The 1896 amendment to the Act required the application of automatic air brakes and these improvements were also accomplished after a number of extensions of the deadline. On many of the cars, the wooden draft arms were replaced with a variety of metal draR arms and draft gears that were less liable to be torn out of the car. As the cars aged, tie rods were added to prevent the sides from bulging out. The last substantial improvements were made in 1908 and 1909, when 225 of the cars were given the replacement steel underframes shown in the drawings. Up until 1910, the entire fleet was fairly well maintained, having lost roughly 500 cars to the dreary succession of wrecks on the Scranton Division. With the delivery of the 1350 new composite hopper cars in 1910 and 1911, the older wooden cars were rapidly retired. By the time of the 1916 I.C.C. Valuation Report, there were only about 1200 cars left. By the end of World War I, they had all but disappeared.

   Although banished from the mainline, many of the old wooden cars were reportedly used for a number of years afterwards to shuttle coal between many of the shafts and the breakers. The late Elwin Mumford handled a number of trains of old wooden hoppers out of Mayfield in the early 1920's bound for Middletown to be dismantled. Derelict after years of neglect, the ancient wooden cars barely survived the last trip to the scrapyard.
   The lettering scheme shown on the cars is typical for the latter part of the 1890's. A careful study of the photos in the balance of the book will show a wide variety of lettering schemes applied to the cars over the years.