Re: Brick in Box Cars

Hard to answer the questions the way you ask them. You seem to have some pre-determined notion of what a brick making plant looks like. I would imagine that they are all different. The kilns are outdoors, but under cover as are all the brickmaking mixers and molds. everything is at ground level on a concrete apron. The railcars are spotted at a loading dock that is at the perimeter of the brick factory. It is quite large and has many pallets of bricks stacked on it. When the bricks are removed from the kiln they are taken to a cooling area where there are large fans mounted in the roof to move the air. Gently and not too fast or the bricks will crack. The kiln trays are steel and are slotted or otherwise provided with ventilation holes.

Clay is brought in by means of covered hoppers and hopper trucks. Some of the bricks are shipped by truck, but the preponderance of them are by rail

the layout viewed

The best I can do on a location is to tell you that it is in Atlanta, GA. The plant is located on the Norfolk Southern main track between Inman Yard and the Chattahoochie river. If you consider the tracks as running east/west at this point, then the plant is on the north side of the tracks near a place called Bolton. If you can find Georgia Power's Plant McDonough, then you are in the right area There is a concrete manufacturing plant that we also switched, immediately across the river from the power plant and right at the river, that has huge kilns. There is also a seven track yard full of covered hoppers and gondola cars loaded with enormous blocks of limestone. Do not confuse this with the brick factory. The two are very close to each other. Concrete kilns are cylindrical/horizontal and can be seen from the air. The brick kilns are like gigantic vertical pizza ovens and are under cover. I imagine that if you can find the area you still won't be able to see much as regards brick making processes. I won't even guarantee that Bickerstaff is even still there. I worked there over 35 years ago and have never been back. The job sukked. Majorly.

Captain Handbrake

"Paul McGraw" wrote

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You want courtesy and manners, go to church.

Your first post to this thread was so full of errors and opinions rather than fact, it didn't reserve a response. My not responding to it ... THAT was manners

"Jim McLaughlin" wrote

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Another off-topic post by the self-appointed most knowledgeable.

-------------------------- "Joe Ellis" wrote

------------------------------------ Joe,

How are they going to steal something that weighs 3, 4, 5 tons off of a railcar?

-------------------------- "Slingblade" wrote

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You're only average at insults. Your blue collar background and sub par IQ keep coming to the surface when you can't answer a basic question.

I don't believe you are a conductor at all. Maybe an extra board switchman, but not a conductor. A conductor would have the paperwork showing what these boxcars weighed, and where they'd come from.

Earlier in this thread you claimed that you'd asked some of the "older" guys you work with, how it was done 20-30 years ago. Anyone who had enough seniority 20-30 years ago to be working on the road, would be retired today.

This group has had for years, among it's members, two old time rails --one who worked in SoCal and the other in Georgia, the Gulf Coast. Their recollections along with the guy who worked in a brickworks, I'll give credence to. YOU are blowing some hot air into your stories about your work experiences.

Does the cement plant take in the limestne blocks, or is there a stone cutting industry in the area as well?

are the hot

Do the kiln

from below)?

------------------------------------------------------ wrote

Well you did a great job in answering them anyway!

So the bricks are at ground level during the entire manufacturing process, then have to be lifted to dock height to be loaded?

The only 2 brick plants I've seen were those I described earlier. This was back in '53 - '67. Every part of both plants was at dock height.

Loss prevention, load retention. A few bricks missing (from theft) can be a real headache when a pallet of bricks is subjected to the vibration of shipment. If the load spills, its best contained in a boxcar.

requiring larger door openings) Ease of loading. It's quite dificult to take a large forklift through a single door, and turn it to load a car. Most cars I've seen were loaded 2 pallets wide and 2 pallets high for the length of the car.

I dunno, how much wood could a woodchuck chuck?

Ever heard of sheet-metal snips?

The same way they'd steal it from a construction site, you ninny.

We're not talking 16 year old vandals in a Ford Escort. If you have the connections to sell the stuff, you've got the connectections to get the necessary equipment.

Not every thief is as dim as the ones you see on COPS...

requiring larger door openings)

Go to a brickyard and measure a pallet of bricks. A boxcar is 10 feet wide and 'X' feet long. A pallet of (typical) bricks weighs about a ton A 50 ton boxcar can carry 50 pallets, 25 in each end.

You can't carry bricks on a flatcar. You can't use a forktruck in a gondola. You can't carry them in a hopper, so what else is left other than a boxcar?

Captain Handbrake

The cement plant uses the blocks. They have a crusher and can make cement from limestone blocks as large as a pickup truck. There are two kilns there that operate

I should have called it a cement factory as concrete is the finished product that is delivered by the mixing plant. The factory only produces the cement. You have to add your own sand and aggregate if you want concrete. By adding sand and lime you can make mortar.

Captain Handbrake

Wow! I guess it's more economical to buy rough blocks than pay another site to crush it, or is there also a transportation advantage (greater density, gons vs hoppers, whatever)?

I gathered it was a cement plant from your describing limestone kilns. If you happen to stumble across any source for description or photos of a 1940's era cement plant, small or compressible, I'd love to see them.

Any research suggestions gratefully accepted as well.

In all of this I should warn all readers to be advised that I never actually went inside the cement plant. It is/was a huge operation with its own switcher fleet. They had three GE industrial diesels, one 70 tonner and two 44 tonners. We delivered hoppers and gons and picked up hoppers and gons to the plant's yard. They did all the switching inside the plant. Oh, you could see inside there pretty good from where we parked our engines, but we would wait at the gate while they moved stuff around and got us ready to go back. Also take into account that I am remembering thirty years ago and may, or may not get everything exactly correct. Once I went off to be a train driver I never went back there again. You still need to do some research on cement plants as I am sure every one is unique to some degree.

Captain Handbrake

"What else do you want to know about bricks?"

Only if raw materials for the manufacture are also shipped in or are they local materials trucked in?

Nice concise description of the the manufacturing process.

Eric

--------------- "Mark Newton" wrote

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I laughed to myself when I read your question. I'd assumed industrial users who bought copper sheet by the spool, would be using relatively thick sheet --- perhaps .25". But upon checking the website of an Industrial supplier of sheet metals, they were quoting spools with copper sheet as thin as .05" in several grades.

What's a thief going to do with, say a 60" x 120" piece of copper sheet, .020" thick? Think there's much of a blackmarket for something like that? We must have at least a couple BS degrees in Chemistry among us. What would that weigh? After we learn what it weighs, we can consider how unwieldy it would be to steal.

--------------- "Joe Ellis" wrote

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You're talking about theft by OC backed gangs. If they're equipped to steal from a construction site, a boxcar is just as vulnerable.

That is the best stuff to steal. Nobody expects to be buying stollen goods. Try leaving a hause for a few weeks in any major city. You may come back to find no wiring, no plumbing. I have seen stolen Diesel fuel in a canvas tank on a stakeback truck. And the railroad had to send a second engine out to tow back the first....

Jim Stewart

Not being a copper thief, I have no idea. And as you are apparently not a copper thief yourself, you don't know, either.

Not being a copper thief, I have no idea. And as you are apparently not a copper thief yourself, you don't know, either.

Are you by any chance an academic?

Very unwieldy, no doubt. But not unwieldy enough to prevent people attempting to steal it. The bloke that my mate and I ran over and killed at Cringilla, while he was carrying stolen copper sheet and tin-snips, would presumably be better able to answer that question.

Suffice to say that here in Australia the theft of copper was enough of a problem to warrant changing the way copper is transported by rail, from bogie opens to containers, etc. - we don't have boxcars as you do in the US.