Esteemed modelers,
I couldn't control myself at the swap meet last weekend and bought a covered hopper because it had the word sugar on it, and I am planning a confectionery or chocolatier -- some sweet factory anyway.
Now that it's home, I am assailed by (mild) fears that I may have acted in haste. Well -- surely I acted in haste, but I may also have acted foolishly in haste, because there may not be a reason for this car to be spotted anywhere on my layout. Historically, does this car get filled with sugar at the Revere plant and sent out to confectioners or does Revere send this empty car out to fetch the raw materials with which to make their sugar? It matters (a little), and I'm hoping it's the former, so that I can have this handsome hauler sidle up to my chocolate factory. I am abysmally ill educated about railroad operations, and even having asked similar questions before about tank cars, it is still not intuitive to me how to interpret the information on a rail car with regard to its use by railroads and their customers.
The other question I have is... really? They're going to dump an edible product like sugar from the hopper into a pit? How would that be okay? Also, do they load the sugar via the hatches using hoses? Or narrow chutes? Would this car -- built 1957, the year of my layout -- be loaded and/or unloaded inside, out of the rain?
Finally, what are some of the uses you've made of covered hoppers of this vintage?
I would welcome a schoolin' nowabouts. Thanks in advance, guys!
-Matt
Returning to model railroading after 40 years and taking unconscionable liberties with the SP&S, Northern Pacific and Great Northern roads in the '40s and '50s.
"One difference between pessimists and optimists is that while pessimists are more often right, optimists have far more fun."
Have a look at this site, gives a pretty good overview of these cars an some of the technology that went into them. Answers your question about how the material was moved. Air was pumped through the sugar, causing it to "fluidize" and be able to flow out of the hopper.
The site says that these cars would have finished sugar as their load, with a bakery as a destination. Seems like you're in luck!
https://www.hamiltonhobbies.com/products/2600-airslide-hopper-revere-sug
crossthedog...Historically, does this car get filled with sugar at the Revere plant and sent out to confectioners or does Revere send this empty car out to fetch the raw materials with which to make their sugar? It matters (a little), and I'm hoping it's the former, so that I can have this handsome hauler sidle up to my chocolate factory. ...
The raw materials for making sugar might be sugar beets, which historically came in in gondolas, sometimes with extended hight sides.
You don't have to have an origination or destination point for every car on your railroad. It could just be passing through or routed to an interchange track to hand off to another railroad.
Mark
MidlandMikeThe raw materials for making sugar might be sugar beets...
Sugar plants might get cane, beets or raw sugar.
The plant in Sugarland, TX (hence the name) recieved boxcars of raw sugar from Galveston. The sugar was loaded in bulk in the cars, a pile in each end (think realy coarse, sticky turbinado sugar) and was unloaded with bobcat front end loaders. They used old MP 40 ft boxcars until the mid 1980's and then substituted ex-RBOX 50 ft boxcars.
A covered hopper like that would be finished sugar outbound from the refinery. It could go to virtually any large food or beverage processing plant (sugar is in everything) or to a distributor that packages sugar for retail sales. Eventually much of the sugar was replaced with corn syrup.
Dave H. Painted side goes up. My website : wnbranch.com
Well Matt, looks like you got a sweet deal! Whistling Just a taster, so to speak…
flyboy14295The site says that these cars would have finished sugar as their load, with a bakery as a destination. Seems like you're in luck!
MidlandMikeThe raw materials for making sugar might be sugar beets, which historically came in in gondolas, sometimes with extended hight sides.
mvlandswYou don't have to have an origination or destination point for every car on your railroad. It could just be passing through or routed to an interchange track to hand off to another railroad.
dehusmanA covered hopper like that would be finished sugar outbound from the refinery. It could go to virtually any large food or beverage processing plant (sugar is in everything) or to a distributor that packages sugar for retail sales.
I'm uncertain about when covered hoppers came into being, but because they're among my favourites, I have quite a few, even if my layout is set in the late '30s.
The majority of mine service GERN Industries...
...although my first such cars were scratchbuilt Fowler boxcars, modified with roof hatches and longitudinal underbody hoppers, meant for delivering refined GERN-brand flux...
This one was definitely too modern for my layout...
...so I sent it to a friend in Texas.
I have quite a few of these, too, although they're also likely too modern...
I also re-worked some older Model Die Casting covered hoppers...
...by replacing the round hatch covers with square ones, and then removing all of the overly thick cast-on sill steps and grabirons, replacing them with wire...
I also removed the overly-thick running boards, and replaced them with more finely-detailed ones from Bowser....
Here's a couple photos of GERN advertising...
This covered hopper, obviously not used for flux, may be the only one on my layout that's prototypical, era-wise...
GERN Industries also uses a lot of tank cars, too, but so to not wander off-topic too far, here's just one of them...
Wayne
doctorwaynebecause they're among my favourites, I have quite a few, even if my layout is set in the late '30s.
doctorwayneso to not wander off-topic too far, here's just one of them...
I gotta say, those ads for flux were disturbing and even nauseating. Some of them actually gave me... ahem... a bit of reflux.
That's an "AirSlide" design covered hopper. It uses air pressure to discharge fine granular products.
It's sort of a precursor to pressure-unloading cars that would be used for sugar and flour (and other fine products) today.
Chris van der Heide
My Algoma Central Railway Modeling Blog
https://lionelllc.wordpress.com/2014/02/07/freight-car-friday-airslide-covered-hoppers/
cv_acrhttps://lionelllc.wordpress.com/2014/02/07/freight-car-friday-airslide-covered-hoppers/
On my car (see photo in first post) I see the horizontal pipe under the center of the car used for hooking up the pressurized air, but I don't see any outlet that looks like it would unload the car pneumatically. But as I suggested before, I doubt they would just dump the sugar out between the rails. Anybody have more solid info about getting the product out of here at a bakery or other factory? What equipment would be lying around trackside, or hanging on a wall, or affixed to the ground?
Here's the underside:
This isn't an airslide but it gives a good look at pneumatic unloading:
Good Luck, Ed
gmpullmanThis isn't an airslide but it gives a good look at pneumatic unloading:
Also, in 1957, would there just be a little locked closet on the outside of an industry next to the track that had hoses in it for this purpose? I guess I could make something up but I would rather know what this really looked like. Where are some of the old-timers (older than my own 60 years, I mean) who might have worked on the railroads and seen or performed these jobs?
Matt asks: "Where are some of the old-timers (older than my own 60 years, I mean) who might have worked on the railroads and seen or performed these jobs?"
In my Conrail days, we used to take empty covered hoppers (short ones) from the "West Yard" at Croton down the Hudson line to what we called "the sugar house" just south of Yonkers station.
I believe these were loaded with powdered or granulated sugar, I remember someone saying that a good portion of it went to the Hershey PA candy factories. We'd pull about 3 or 4 loads out, put empties back in.
The loads would go back to Croton, and get picked up to be shipped north to Selkirk at night on the OPSE.
A pic at this URL (might be copyrighted, so I'm just posting a link):
http://s3.amazonaws.com/rrpa_photos/21427/csx-b749-sb-yonkers-sugar-house-pp02.JPG
Pic was taken 'way past my time there. The covered hopper behind the engines is loaded with plastic pellets for a firm named "Rollex" which made plastic bags, just a little south of the sugar house.
OldEnginemanPic was taken 'way past my time there. The covered hopper behind the engines is loaded with plastic pellets for a firm named "Rollex" which made plastic bags, just a little south of the sugar house.
Ah the Yonkers Domino Sugar factory! I lived just down the street from Croton Harmon. Passed by there many times!
Thanks for this vignette, OEM. I love hearing about railroadmen's memories of their workdays of yore. I wish there were a fifth category of post here dedicated to stories, yarns, memories, myths, legends and the quotidian details of a day working the line.