? - on a coal train

[Semper Vaporo]

I have seen many coal unit trains with multiple cars facing the opposite of the majority of the rest of the train.  And they are not all together in a block, but randomly distributed throughout the train.

I always figured that all they need to do is uncouple the car from the cars behind it, pull it in and rotate it, then back to get the rest of the train, pull in the next car and uncouple it, rotate that one, then back in to reconnect the rest of the train and continue with those cars that have the rotary couplers correctly oriented with each other.  Takes extra time, but not an insurmountable problem.

I have also seen photos of rotary dumpers that can handle two cars at once, so if there happens to be two with non-rotatary couplers together they just pull those two in and dump them together.

[rdamon]

I always enjoyed trying to spot the car with the stripes on each side indicating rotary couplers on each end of the car.

 

I was told once by the crew running the Cushenberry local in California that the rotary couplers could be problematic in the mountains and that they were usually pinned and the bottom dump gate were used.  Of course this was far less that a 133 car delivery.

[dehusman]

There are rotary equipped hoppers and rotary equipped gons.  If the rotary equipped hoppers aren't aligned (rotary ends mixed), that's probably a set that bottom dumps rather than rotary dumps.

Having to break the train numerous times to dump mis-aligned cars would be a huge drain on the unloading time and very expensive compared to an aligned train.

[Mookie]

Unless I am mistaken, these cars would unload in Iowa.  Are there two power plants close enough together that they could drop off all the left facing rotary and then go on to the next one and do the right facing ones?  That would be about 50 cars for the 1st place and 80 for the 2nd? Then reverse the whole procedure to go back west.   

I was so busy counting I didn't even look to see if they were bottom dump, but they will be back thru here again and I will do a little better research!

[dehusman]

Mookie

Unless I am mistaken, these cars would unload in Iowa. Are there two power plants close enough together that they could drop off all the left facing rotary and then go on to the next one and do the right facing ones? That would be about 50 cars for the 1st place and 80 for the 2nd? Then reverse the whole procedure to go back west.

I doubt its for two different power plants.  Its probably midtrain DPU on one train.

[jeffhergert]

I think the Fruitland plant uses bottom dump cars.  I think the Bettendorf plant also used bottom dump cars, but it was scheduled to either close or convert to natural gas.  Since UP lost the contracts a year or two ago, I've forgotten exactly what the equipment was on those trains.

Jeff