I had forgotten that I'd heard of Larry Cars years ago, but I just rediscovered them on Dirty Jobs

these are just old example of a much earlier generation of Larry Cars, probably from 100 years ago.

Larries are used to charge coke ovens because of the additional functions of unsealing, removing, replacing and resealing the lid. In fact, judging by Anthony's photo, each oven has four lids.

One function of a Larry car is to be able to accurately dump its contents. Another function in some applications is to be able to weigh the contents so that it can dump an accurate amount of material. Both of these functions is why a Larry was added to the design of Hulett iron ore unloaders.

even has an operator cab at the far end

https://digital.library.pitt.edu/islandora/object/pitt:200618.27.2.78

http://industrialscenery.blogspot.com/2021/01/larry-cars-in-steel-mills.html

The cars are seven foot, ten and a half inch gauge. In company literature, they are referred to as ore transfer cars and there are two types, side dump and bottom dump, with, I understand right, the Hoover-Mason system of stock bins. 

The bins fed Atlas Car & Manufacturing Company built electric (trolley) powered scale cars that moved, weighed, and dropped the material into skip buckets that were hoisted to the top of the blast furnaces. 

  now you know what a Larry car is