Covered Hoppers - Question

Could some of you please describe some 'operations scenarios' involving covered hoppers.

1) Could I use the same train for varied deliveries?

** For example: If I originated a covered hopper, unit train in hidden staging using a dozen or so of these cars, could I deliver the entire train to a cement industry on one excursion, return the train to hidden staging, and deliver the exact same train to an entirely different industry on its next trip onto the layout?

2) Do these unit trains allow for varied road names, or must I have one road name?

** For example: Could I assemble a unit train consisting of ATSF, MILW, and BN cars?

3) Do these unit trains allow for varied car designs?

** For Example: Could I mix 50', 37', and other lengths?

Thank You!!! Matt

Reply to
Matt & Kathleen Brennan
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mix 50', 37', and other lengths?

37' and 55' covered hoppers are not designed for the same loads, just like 22' ore hoppers and 60' wood chip hoppers don't carry the same loads and are not mixed into the same "unit train". Very generally the shorter (typically two bay) cars carry more dense materials like cement, medium length cars (3 bays, Airslides) tend to carry specialized materials like plastic pellets, and the longer 55' cars carry low density agricultural products. Most of the covered hopper unit trains I've seen carry grain, etc. and consist of all 55' flat or round side cars. I cannot recall ever seeing a unit train of mid or short length cars, and it's hard to imagine a cement plant big enough to merit a whole train of raw material.

originated a covered hopper, unit train in hidden staging using a dozen or so of these cars, could I deliver the entire train to a cement industry on one excursion, return the train to hidden staging, and deliver the exact same train to an entirely different industry on its next trip onto the layout?

You can do anything you want on your layout. Depending how realistic you want too be, you may choose to constrain your train usage as in #3 above.

MILW, > and BN cars?

Modeling recent times, a mix of BN and ATSF cars would be totally appropriate on a BNSF train. But in my experience, competing foreign road cars (like UP in the BNSF train) would be less likely. More likely would be private owner/grain cooperative and feeder short line cars. GQ

Reply to
Geezer

Geezer wrote: >>> ... you may choose to constrain your train usage as in #3 above.

Thanks. This helps a lot.

That's good to know. I will avoid this type of mix.

Most Appreciated!

Reply to
Matt & Kathleen Brennan

Geezer,

I think you may have typo'ed in you post.... The 3 Bay cars(4427/4450 cubes) usually handle grain. Those long 4 bay cars(5000/5500 cubes) are generally used for very low density stuff(like plastic pellets). I remember watching the 'once a month' plastic pellet car being unloaded at the AMPI milk plant - those pellets were used to make the milk containers you see in the grocery store. Airslide cars come in a 70t and a 100t size, and have 1 or 2 discharge outlets - they have a perforated liner that air is blown into to 'fluff' up commodities like flour or sugar, so it will 'flow' out without caking up or sticking. The shorter 2 bay cars(70t-100t) are used for 'dense' materials like cement or roofing granules. Cement/concrete plants are pretty much a local or regional industry. You really do not see 'unit trains' of cement - usually 1- 3 cars might go to a cement plant. Her in Rochester, MN; cement comes from Mason City(Leigh Portland??) or from the State of South Dakota cement plant south of Rapid City - maybe a

150-500 line haul. You do see lots of 1500-2000 mile 'unit trains' of grain going to Gulf/Lakehead/Pacific Northwest ports for shipment. Another commodity we see in the midwest is potash from Canada - lots of those round Canadian cars - 100t capacity with anywhere from 3-6 discharge bays.

Jim Bernier

Geezer wrote:

Reply to
Jim Bernier

In Kansas, Nebraska, Oklahoma and other great grain states, during the

60s-70s you would find grain hoppers from almost all of the North American railroads mixed in. There are never enough hoppers available from a single carrier during the harvest season. The mix would normally be 50%-75% home carrier marked cars. The remainder would be from foreign carriers with the closet interchanging carriers having the greater percentage and corresponding lesser percentage from those farther away. That would be ideal. But during Harvest, conditions are usually not ideal. Most of the interchange carriers will be needing their cars for their own internal use so the percentages could be skewed. Example,

I will model portions of the Ellsworth, KS to Cherryvale, KS branchline. Interchanges would potentially be UP, ATSF, MP, and CRI&P. For my layout (SLSF, Frisco), I would use mostly the following percentages.

SLSF - 60% ATSF/CRI&P - 5% UP/SSW/SP/WP/MP - 15% ACL/SOU/NW - 15% North Atlantic and Great lakes carriers - 5%

The basic reasoning is that not all US/Canada state/prov. harvesting is begun and/or completed at the same time. To maximize usage (and revenue) Atlantic states (and other distant) carriers may send a portion of their fleet to supplement the local Harvest area carriers. Not to mention, the local harvest carriers would also request additional cars due to projected large harvest yields. I think that this last harvest (2003) the big carriers goofed and did not have near enough cars needed. Also I seem to remember that there were not enough cars available in all of North America for the actual need.

Reply to
Art Marsh

Hoppers are generally designed for a particular load and usually aren't used for other types of loads unless they are fully cleaned by hand. After a cleaning, they can then be used for another load if the density of the load is about the same. Thus, you will see unit trains all of the same size. In addition, unit trains of stuff like cement will usually be of the same road name although the designs may be from different makers of cars, usually in older sets. Trains like grain service will have a lot of foreign cars but they too will be of the same size usually with the caveat of different makers.

-- Bob May Losing weight is easy! If you ever want to lose weight, eat and drink less. Works every time it is tried!

Reply to
Bob May

Hmmm, seems like your missing a set. GN/NP/Milwalkee/CNW. I was in Wichita during that time period and I recall an influx of Northwestern railroads cars in the early spring. They went to Texas and then followed the winter wheat crop harvest north ending up on the home roads in time for their own "harvest season".

Also I seem to recall a great number of CB&Q cars showing up on the Frisco.

Reply to
SleuthRaptorman

Grin! I sort of dumped them all into the Great Lakes group. I grew up with the Frisco there in Wichita myself. I have seen virtually every North American line represented at one time or another on the Frisco. I had even spotted a few Alaska RR boxcars a time or two. I also did not mention that well up into the 1970s both "Grain loading only" boxcars and hoppers were used.

Wichita had four major carriers dur>

Reply to
Art Marsh

That would be the most common scenario for a covered hopper. They would normally be in standard freight operations. During harvest the trains would include more and more of that type car until they were the dominant type.

I don't know of any unit trains made up of covered hoppers. In general, a "unit train" is one that is never broken up during either loading or unloading operations.

Want to see a neat Santa Fe train with a 36' hopper, there is footage on the Santa Fe Odyssey Volume 1. Train consists of a Zebra striped GP7, on 36' covered hopper, and one 1890's vintage combine (baggage & coach).

BTW - From the Super Chief discussions, I thought you were attempting to model a bit earlier period? The short 35.6' cars were introduced in

1930s but I don't think the larger ones (centerflow), for grain, came out until 1964 or so. Before then grain was carried in "grain loading" box cars. I've never studied this transition exactly but I do know that during the 1970 BN merger, the NP contributed many "grain loading" boxes as well as the covered hoppers. By this time (1967) the Super Chief was behind FP45 locomotives and combined into one train with the El Capitan.
Reply to
SleuthRaptorman

I was gonna reply with basically the same answer :) You'd use cars like the Accurail, Atlas or Intermountain 3-bay ACF, Athearn PS-2, Intermountain PS-2 4750, MDC FMC 3-bay, etc for grain.

They also ship sand in these cars, to places like foundries that use sand as part of their casting process. The local here used to ship as many as 20 or more a day. The cars typically are like the Front Range, Detail Associates, Ramax or Intermountain 2-bay ACF, but they used others too.

Reply to
me

However, from the grain standpoint, you'd see the PS-2 and Trinity versions mixed together on the same train. Which, would give you a bit of car type variation...

Kennedy

Reply to
Kennedy (no longer not on The Haggis!)

I am not as closely tied to a particular era even though the discussions began to move in that direction. The input was fabulous, nonetheless - as is this discussion. I always enjoy the wonderful, first hand accounts that are contributed to these types of threads.

I have tried to incorporate overlapping scenarios that stretch real-world situations, yet they're still plasuible. My plan is to model very specific trains and hopefully create scenery that is generic enough to allow for their variety [i.e. Super Chief, Fast Mail Express, a PFE train, a Covered Hopper grain train, and a few other named trains].

>
Reply to
Matt & Kathleen Brennan

I live near and have worked at the Cominco smelter in Trail BC. In times past all the concentrate (ore that's been ground and waste removed) has come in in open hoppers, but about thirty years ago all lead concentrate and most zinc concentrate began coming in in covered hoppers, while coal still arrives in open hoppers. The reasons I have heard for covered hoppers were to reduce environmental pollution and reduce wetness. These are lowsided cars with removable fibreglass covers, not the usual tall covered hoppers. Inside the plant, dirty beatup covered hoppers were used to move "white dust" from the smelter to other plants. This dust is mostly lead oxide with some zinc oxide. when wet it makes a sticky mess that coats the car. The cars were very beat up as we used electric vibrators to help unload, but usually these weren't enough, so we used a 12 pound sledge to bang on the car sides.

Hope this give you a few new ideas.

John H.

Reply to
NERD

-- Bob May Losing weight is easy! If you ever want to lose weight, eat and drink less. Works every time it is tried!

Reply to
Bob May

Let me see if I can help. First of all, the roadname doesn't matter so much. As you're likely to see any roadname's cars anywhere in the country at any kind of industry. It's more important the TYPE of cars. For instance. I don't know of ANY 50' Cement hoppers. Cement simply weighs too much . A typical 37' Cement hopper weighs well over 100 tons. Usually around 100-130, dependant on the design. A

50' Cement hopper would probably weight over 200 tons. Plus, most cement industries have their pits spaced so they line up with the standard Cement hopper designs. Some industries may only have one pit per track, others may have two or more per track. Usually if they have more than one pit per track, the subsequent pits are spaced so they line up as close as possible, so the cars have to be moved very little if any to unload two (or more) cars at a time. As to commodities...as a rule, Covered hoppers are used for only one type of commodity. Most especially are Cement hoppers and Grain hoppers. Many are in fact stensiled "Cement loading only" or "Grain loading only". If they weren't then they'd have to be thoroughly cleaned out between loads. This would cost the companies a fortune. It's much easier to keep hoppers assigned certain service. In fact, many open top hoppers are used the same way. I've seen a number of woodchip style hoppers stensiled for "aggregate loading only" (a component of concrete, often delivered to cement plants).

You could however, see most any road name of a Cement car spotted up at any cement plant, or any road name of grain car at any grainery, or any road name car of plastic pellets at a plastic manufacturer or bulk unloading facility, etc, etc, etc.

Reply to
Slingblade

Second to coal trains, unit trains with grain cars only are the probably the most common type of unit trains. In many places unit grain trains are the ONLY type of unit trains seen.

Your definition of "unit train" is almost correct. But not quite. A unit train is a train that is delivered as a unit and pulled as a unit, and generally makes a continous round trip journey between to points. They can however be "broken up" during loading or unloading.

For instance. Many coal trains are delivered to power plants where they have a multi-track storage yard. No track is long enough to hold the entire train, so the train is broken up into two, three or more sections and shoved off into the various tracks. One power plant that I know of, has their own switcher (an MP15), which comes out as needed and couples up to a track, pulls the cars down to a rotary dump, and then one by one carries the cars through the rotary. Once emptied, the switcher shoves the empties back to it's origin track, and proceeds to the next track until all cars are unloaded. At some point in the future, the railroad sends a crew down and gets the empties and carries them back to where they came from for reloading. The same set of hoppers may return in a few days to start the process over again, or those cars could be loaded and sent to another power plant.

There ARE some plants with trestles or pits where you can unload a train while moving very slowly, and never break up the train, or in some cases, you might have to take half the train through on first pass, then other half on the second.

In the case of grain mills, almost all of them have multitrack setups. Except for very small grain mills which receive very few cars at a time, they all have several tracks. Usually 4 or more tracks. I know of two mills that have 8 tracks each. Unit trains of 50 or more cars will be broken down and spotted filling up each track subsequently until you run out of cars to spot, or the tracks are full...in which case you'd have to hang some cars out on another track somewhere for future spotting. I know of one mill on our route that only has one track, but they only get a car or two every now and then. Probably don't get over 50 cars total in a years time. Definately would never get a unit train.

We have a pair of Fieldale mills at the same location...one on each side of the track. They can take a 75 or 100 car train easily. Usually request that half be spotted in each plant. There are 4 other major unit train receivers on our line, Wayne Farms, Goldkist, Cargill and the CSX interchange with ConAgra. They are supposed to begin construction soon on a new mill on our route...don't know for sure who's plant it will be. I hear possibly a MarJac mill. But I do know they'll be set up for 75 car grain trains. They're supposed to build a passing track for 75 cars between it and a Wayne Farms mill.

Reply to
Slingblade

Many times 'unit grain' movement is in smaller cuts. I remember back in the

70's, BN was offering rates on minimum 26 car 'unit trains' of 100 ton grain hoppers. The cars would be set out, and needed to be loaded by a set date, then were taken to the destination. Later this was expanded and they offered to take the 'unit train' to a yard where they were combined with other 'unit trains' that were moving to the same consignee. The reason for all of this was to give a lower 'rate' for the one time bulk shipment, and to induce elevator companies to consolidate multiple small elevators into large ones that could be serviced with the 100 ton grain hoppers. Before that time, most grain in the Dakotas/Minnesota moved to the big GTA elevator in Superior, WI for export shipment or to eastern customers. There were several 'strikes', and refusal to load grain in Russian ships. The traffic pattern changed then to 'Gulf' ports and later to Pacific Northwest ports. Now there was even more, larger moves of grain - many times assembled into single destination 'unit trains'.

Jim Bernier

Sl> >

Reply to
Jim Bernier

I loved driving up North Broadway past the Santa Fe round house at 21st street. Believe it or not one time I drove by and said "drat just a bunch of stupid F units". Like a fool I thought they would be there forever. Never thought to take any pictures.

Then when they put in I35 right over the Rock Island and Mopac yards it was amazing to see all the trains. The Frisco was sort of the small man out. I remember joking about their northbound freight schedule - It was a tri-weekly. It went up one week and tried to get back the next.

I also went to high school up near Newton. The school was on the Rock Island "main" out of Wichita. Newton was on the Santa Fe main. And in a small town called Whitewater the Mopac crossed the Rock Island and they both had stations there!

Reply to
SleuthRaptorman

Well, I stand corrected. In one of the other threads someone mentioned a CN grain unit train. It apparently has tubes between the cars for car to car cargo transfer.

Reply to
SleuthRaptorman

I have see grain car unit trains in Oregon, along both banks of the Columbia River at certain times of the year.

On the north shore of the Columbia, BN uses the old SP&S main to carry wheat from Eastern Washington and Eastern Oregon to the grain terminals at Kalama, WA, between Vancouver and Longview. At the Kalama terminal (Cargill ???) it is transshipped into freighters.

On the south side of the Columbia, Universal Predator runs grain car unit trains from Harriman / LaGrande / Pendleton / Heppner / Arlington and further east in eastern Oregon to the terminals (Dreyfus???) along the Willamette in Portland, just south of the confluence of the Willamette and Columbia. Again, huge storage silos, then into freighters.

I may have flip flopped the Cargill / Dreyfus locations

-- Jim McLaughlin

Please don't just hit the reply key. Remove the obvious from the address to reply.

Reply to
Jim McLaughlin

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