> >What are some typical loads shipped in double door boxcars?
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"Slingblade" wrote
Food products, Lumber, plywood, sheetrock, Bricks, Stone, Paper
> products, Automobile parts (all kinds of things from engines and
> transmissions to fenders and various other steel and plastic parts of > autos).
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Were you just guessing here?!
Food products, ----- Too generic of an answer. In my mind, the most common "food products" are palletized corrugated boxes of processed foods packaged in a wide variety of containers. No need for DDs Lumber, ------------- Yes, if it needed protection from the elements, or a DD boxcar was available and not needed in the near future for a more valuable load. plywood, ------------ Yes, but for Mark M's mid '60s modeling period, plywood was still in it's infancy as roof and wall sheathing sheetrock, ----------- Maybe but doubtful. Too heavy a load for a 50' boxcar. Plus sheetrock is a low value product; can't be transported economically for any distance. Bricks, -------------- I can't claim it was never done, but why on Earth would you use a boxcar to transport bricks -- protect them from the weather? If the bricks were baked in a small town that had another industry that accepted inbound loaded DD boxcars, OK. A 50' DD hauling bricks would have to be a 'only car available for loading' scenario. Stone, -------------- Please..... Paper products, ----- Again, too generic of a term. As other posts have described, a PD+DD boxcar would be more likely that a DD, because the closed PD can be used to secure/brace the load.
As a non-railroader who is ignorant of railroad protocol, I've enjoyed reading about the loads NS carries today, and in the loads carried in the 60's, in double door boxcars.
Yes, we do deliver bricks and stone in 50 and 60 foot boxcars with single and double doors. I've never seen brick loaded in anything other than a boxcar...ever.
Youre statement makes absolutely no sense. I just said that both single and double door cars are commonly used to move various types of food products. What part of this do you not understand?
future for a more valuable load.
That's fine...but I don't recall the original poster mentioning it was in the 60's. I only remembered a general question as to what kind of commodities were hauled in double door box cars.
boxcar. Plus sheetrock
transported economically for any distance.
the huge population
loaded with
weren't around in the mid '60s.
We get cars that come from Linwood, NC...Birmingham, AL...Macon, GA...Chattanooga, TN and elsewhere. Where they came from before those locations is anyone's guess. I don't do the billing on the cars, but I'm sure that many of them came from a lot further away than 100 or
200 miles.
How can you say that a 50' boxcar loaded with sheetrock would be over
240 tons when the same merchandise loaded on a 60' Centerbeam flat weighs approximately half that, maybe 150 tons? You'd get MORE on the flat then you would in the boxcar.
would you use a boxcar
the weather? If the bricks were
industry that accepted inbound
bricks would have to be a
to steal such
These brick plants...do they MAKE or distribute bricks?
But no matter which, all the brick that we deliver is ALWAYS in boxcars...never flats or gons.
any concerns
Theft from rail cars of all descriptions and types is common on every railroad in this country.
As to your question...I'm not sure what you are asking.
But I'll try to guess and give the answer I suppose you're searching for...
In today's railroading, the major carriers hire you as ground personel first. If you are hired by Norfolk Southern, you are hired as a "conductor trainee" and sent to the NS training facility in McDonough, GA, where you spend some time in classroom and field exercises, then about a month on the division/district that you will be working, then back to school for some more classroom work, then the remainder of an average of about six months total on your designated territory before you mark up. Once you mark up, you are put on a brakeman/switchman's extraboard, if it exists for your area. Otherwise you go on a conductor/foreman's extraboard. As a qualified conductor/brakeman, you can be called from the brakeman's extraboard to work either as a conductor or a brakeman as the company needs you. If the conductor's extraboard is exhausted, they pull a man from the brakeman's extraboard to use as a conductor. Likewise...at times they have been known to use a man off the conductor's board as a brakeman. Once you go back to school to become an engineer, then that complicates things even more...you can be on the engineer's board, and be called out in any of the three classes of service.
When it comes to claiming jobs (such as when someone goes on vacation), a brakeman can claim any brakeman's job that he stands for seniority-wise. A brakeman can also claim any conductor's position at OUTLYING terminals, but not at the home terminal. A conductor can only claim conductor's jobs, never a brakeman's. And in the event that you have a man on the brakeman's board (or a regular bid in brakeman's job) who has seniority over a "younger" employee who is working as a conductor...then that younger conductor can outclaim the senior brakeman when it comes to a conductor's vacancy.
As far as I know, no other railroad in this country has their own school like NS does. CSX, UP and BNSF hire people who either have railroad experience already, or who have gone through one of the local "collegiate conductor colleges" (where you pay about 4 thousand dollars for a 5 week course with no guarantee that any railroad will hire you).
I'm sure the rules governing conductors and brakeman are fairly similar from one major carrier to the other.
I did have one CSX conductor who told me that they don't have "bid in" jobs where he works, that they simply use seniority to claim a job until someone more senior comes along or the job gets cut off or changed. On the NS, all local jobs are advertised when they are put on to give any employee with enough seniority a chance to bid in and hold the job. As conditions change on the railroad, that employee could be rolled off his job by a senior employee who's been otherwise displaced himself. Sometimes jobs are cut off temporarily to match down time that our customers have (such as when General Motors Doraville or Ford Motor Company Hapeville shuts down for holidays, fiscal year, or model change). During times like that you will see a lot of activity of employees rolling one another and the lowest seniority men are forced back to the extraboards, usually the same one that represents which ever craft they were working in at the time they were displaced.
Also...the need for more men on the engineer's board rises and falls at certain times of the year. This means that men who are qualified as engineers (but also as conductors and brakeman) may work a couple months as an extraboard engineer, then be cut off the engineer's board and return to the ground, displacing a senior man on a regular bid in job if they wish as either a conductor or brakeman. After a few weeks or months of this, they could once again be forced back to the engineer's board.
Likewise, when the railroad marks up a bunch of new conductor trainees, they go to the brakeman's board first. But as new men come in behind them, spots on the conductor's are advertised just in case a man on a regular job would perfer to go back to the extraboard for whatever reason (many times the extraboard men make more than men on regular jobs, because they work more often...other times the extraboard is the kiss of death, especially in slow times, when you only work every 3rd or 4th day or so). If no one bids in the conductor board positions, then the most junior brakemen are forced to the conductor's board. As a rule they won't allow a man to go to the conductor's board until he's been marked up and on the brakeman's board atleast 60 days. They will however allow him to be called off the brakeman's board and be used as a conductor "in emergency" (as they refer to it). I've often wondered about that logic...but I don't make the big decisions...I just work there.
Stone, as in stone building products. Many homes are built these days with stacked stone. Not everything is a gravestone, or ballast or such.
described, a PD+DD
because the closed PD can be
I don't think you quite understand the primary purpose for double door boxcars...it is for a larger opening on the car. It is easier to drive forklifts and other equipment into the cars when the opening is larger.
We have some industries who always request double door cars, and we have some who always request single door 50' cars.
Likewise, some industries always want hi-cube cars (no matter what the length).
Having worked around the building supply industry and being an avid rail fan during the 1960's I know that all brick shipped more than a few miles traveled by boxcar in the mid 1960's. Rail was much more dominant over trucks at that time than it is now. Brick is very heavy, and even in the
60's the use of large forklifts for loading/unloading was common. The DD car was much easier to load and unload.
Brick is difficult to clean, and builders demand that a load of bricks for a project be of uniform color. So brick is always shipped in boxcars instead of flats or gons to keep it clean. Soot, chemical splatters, or just dirt that gets on some of the bricks will ruin the uniform appearence and builders do not want to fool around with cleaning the brick.
Lumber was moved allmost always in boxcars prior to the 60's. Flats or gons could be used for very short hauls but this was very rare. Both stick Lumber and sheet goods easily warp when exposed to the weather. The center beam and bulkhead flats were only used widely after there was reasonably priced plastic sheeting available to wrap the lumber. This made loading and unloading very easy. Some product damage occurs due to impact damage or tearing of the plastic sheeting, but these losses are usually offset by the savings in manpower time for loading and unloading. Only random length, low grade, and otherwise low value lumber would be shipped without protection.
As with brick, the DD car was preferred for its ease of loading and unloading. A carload in a DD boxcar could be unloaded by a man with forklift in about 1/3 the time it took to unload a car with 8' single door by three men, and with less damage to the goods.
Hardwoods and higher priced sheet goods would always be shipped in DD boxcars or 10' door cars to prevent weather damage and impact damage. Many
6' amd 8' door boxcars were still in use in the mid 60's and these would be rejected for hardwood loads.
I forget the fellow's name on here who seemed to think I was "making up" these loads in DD cars (and making up the whole concept of brick in boxcars altogether)...but, apparently there are many others of you out there who have some ACTUAL experience, as do I, with railroad freight.
Just for the heck of it, I mentioned this usenet thread to some of my co-workers on the NS who have 20-30 years experience on the railroad, and they corroberate that they've never seen brick loaded in anything other than a boxcar. The raw materials used to make brick might be delivered in something other than a boxcar, but the finished product always goes in a boxcar, as do many finished stone products.
And to that guy's comments about who'd steal brick. I guess the same people type of people who stole some cases of canned peaches off a Railbox car that sat in one of our yards with the door open for a few days.
As you have mentioned as well, DD boxcars are often preffered by shippers because of the ease of maneuvering forklifts, or for loads that are wider than a normal 8 or 10 foot boxcar door.
Any more information about what Industries, or what type (size) rolls of paper?
I wouldn't think paper would be rolled any wider than just under 1/2 width of a boxcar.
You're not using the term "double-door" interchangeably with "sliding+plug door" are you?
Paper rolls are not an awkward load at all -- there would be no reason to use a double-door car unless that's all that was available. A sliding+plug door would be far more desirable than a DD car for paper loading.
When talking about filling a car to capacity, it's helpful to qualify your meaning. Are you referring to cubic capacity, or weight capacity?
Thank you for chiming back in here, Mark. I had thought your original question was more of a general question than the guy who posted the "reminder" tried to insinuate.
We've had industries reject a car because of length, height, problems with getting the doors open, cars that weren't properly cleaned out by a previous industry (such as residue from where bricks had been loaded previously, when the empty car was spotted at another industry that loads paper scrap or wood products).
As far as I know, all they have to do is contact the company and request the car be pulled and replaced with a different car. We had to do this recently with the above mentioned industry, and have done it in the past with others.
Have you ever loaded a railcar? Any rail car? Unloaded one?
Some of the readers of this group are giving your posts extra credence because you work for a Railroad.
Please explain how a double door boxcar provides "extra capacity" over a single door boxcar when loading paper rolls. I'm also curious as to what (or whom) suggested that to Mark M.
Meant to put diameter on the roll below. This is radius ......
The whole roll was wraped in paper and sealed with adhesive (about 5 layers) It could be stored outside, but it was easier to process if stored indoors.
It could be wider than half the car and put in with a row in the corner, a roll with the center core diagionally against the other wall, etc. It usually arrived in double sheathed 50' cars with single doors.
There was about 500' between our building and the next on the siding. Extra cars could be set and a comalong (long pole with a jack end) move cars between switches (twice a day).
Sorry for the confusion. The 2.5 foot is the radius of the roll. Most mills, news print, corrugated, bag, and book printers can not handle much more than that radius in the plant. The length of the roll ( width of a sheet) is controlled by the equipment it si going on. The paper machine could make humongous withs (usually a 175' bed or more but these are easily slit inline as the paper cools and drys. It is then rolled and the size of the roll is determined by cutting across the web with a cutting blade. There are multiple sets of spindles which must be emptied after the roll is slit. It is the length of the spindle arm, because it rotates, that really limits the radius of the roll that can be made. It is usually not practicle to make a very large roll. because of the rotating beam, the mode of transportation, and the shafts on the equipment where it is going.
I think we are saying the same thing, perhaps I should have taken the time to explain it clearer.
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