Loose Material Loads in Gondolas

[cedarwoodron]

In the real railroad world are there requirements for loading loose material- sand, gravel, scrap goods- such that the loaded material maxes out below the rim of the car body to avoid spillage in transit?

Cedarwoodron

[doctorwayne]

Yeah, there were usually lines, painted on the outside of the car, indicating load height for materials like sand and gravel.  The denser the material, the less that could be in the car.  Of course I can't find a photo showing the painted lines.

Here's a train of hoppers hauling gravel, the cars about half-full.  Were it sand, there would be even less per car...

Baled scrap would likely be loaded by the known weight of the bales, while loose scrap seemed less regulated - lots of air space between the pieces, I guess, and I've seen some loads above the height of the sides.
On my railroad, most scrap loads are loose, and at their highest, only to the top chord of the sides...

Wayne

[cv_acr]

doctorwayne

Yeah, there were usually lines, painted on the outside of the car, indicating load height for materials like sand and gravel.  The denser the material, the less that could be in the car.  Of course I can't find a photo showing the painted lines. Here's a train of hoppers hauling gravel, the cars about half-full.  Were it sand, there would be even less per car...

 

What Wayne is getting at, but didn't quite state explictly, is that a railroad car has a maximum capacity by *weight* that it can be loaded to. The lines he mentioned that sometimes appear on certain cars are provided as a handy reference "fill to this height to load max weight capacity of this material".

The hoppers are only half full because crushed stone is much heavier than coal and hits the weight capacity of the car before maxing out the volume capacity. If the cars were loaded with coal, then the load would be nearly to the top of the car sides and piled up above the height of the car in the centre.

[cv_acr]

Here's a good example of loading lines on a CN ballast service hopper:

http://canadianfreightcargallery.ca/cgi-bin/image.pl?i=cn90361detail1&o=cn

[doctorwayne]

Thanks for that link, Chris.

When I was looking for a photo showing the lines, I discovered that most of my models don't have them (no one to blame but me, as I've painted and lettered almost all of them.)    I also couldn't find any examples in my railfanning photos - I'll have to see if I can get a few when the weather gets nicer.

Wayne