The hot metal car was a specialized industrial railcar used to transport molten iron from blast furnaces to steel mills. The liquid metal was poured into the firebrick-lined “bottle” through a small hatch at the top, allowing it to remain in its liquid state for up to 24 hours. While the car’s thick metal plate could withstand the extreme heat and weight of the molten iron, it also made the car exceptionally heavy and difficult to maneuver. The bottle-shaped design came in various sizes: standard ladle cars had 12 wheels and weighed up to 125 tons when full, while larger units featured 16 wheels and could weigh as much as 400 tons.
Each road number of the United States Steel Car features one of the names of four Pittsburgh Steelers players that the workers had hand-painted onto the prototype--Franco Harris (32), Terry Bradshaw (12) Joe Greene (75) and Chuck Noll.
