Although Norfolk Southern trains haul everything and the kitchen sink, NS is often identified with coal. Both Southern and Norfolk & Western had huge fleets of standard hoppers and Southern was fond of experimental coal gondolas. In the years following the NS merger, rotary dumping became more common and NS began rebuilding older hoppers into square bottomed "Top Gons." With demand for cars still high, NS ordered aluminum CoalPorters from Johnstown America. Unlike the vast majority of CoalPorters, these NS cars have fixed couplers on both ends. The cars must be uncoupled from the next car before the rotary dumping begins. That is why these cars don't have a single painted end. This is likely because the feature would be wasted on NS who tends to load coal in smaller groups of cars on numerous branchlines rather than complete unit trains from a single Power River flood loader. This new run of NS gondolas consists of a single, 3 pack, 6 pack, and 10 pack with a total of 20 different road numbers.