The Alaska Railroad's gondolas were built by Mount Vernon Car in 1943, apparently for the U.S. Government, but given to D.R.G.W. to operate. They were acquired by the Alaska Railroad in 1947 and are now used in Maintenance of Way (MOW) service only (The 50 year rule dictates they can no longer be used for revenue or interchange). Currently, you will generally find these 40 footers hauling scrap, pipe, logs, etc. However, they were used for hauling drilling pipe during the oil boom days. Later, some of these were loaded with scrap, taken to Seward and the whole car with load was dumped into a ship carrying scrap metal.