Coil Cars - Trains Magazine

Sheet steel, rolled into coils.
Sheets are about three to four feet wide, about 30 feet long, light gauge up to 1/4" thick, rolled length ways, or coiled.
You can get four or five per car.
Covered because this steel is going to be re-processed into other things, and keeping it covered lessens the rusting.

Of course, you've seen the slab steel shipped on flats, and the coils of wire steel, in gons?
Wire steel is just that, steel made into 1/4" wire, then rolled into big loops.
It too is re-processed into other steel products, as are the steel balls you see shipped in open gons.
From 1" to 4" steel balls, look just like cannon balls, but are shaped that way because it is easier to ship them, you can fill a gon with them using a chute.

Just like the coil steel, its easier to fashion the raw steel into this shape, and easier to ship it, than making it into flat sheets, which require a flat car, and special storage and unloading facilities.

Ed