JPS1 What kinds of stuff would be hauled in 39’-50’ hopper cars vs. 55’-65’ hopper cars? I see both in unit trains that frequently pass my favorite train watching spot. Some of the cars are owned by BNSF; some of them by shippers. The trains usually contain all BNSF cars or all shipper cars. The BNSF unit trains are headed to Galveston, I believe. They probably are carrying export commodities. The other day I saw a southbound train of solid hopper cars run by a mixed merchandise train that was stopped on an adjacent track. What priority would a commodity unit train get?
Covered hoppers.
Bulk commodity cars are sized to the weight of their intended contents. Small cube cars get heavy commodities. Large cube cars get lighter commodities. The idea is to have a 'full' load max out the allowabe gross weight when the car is loaded to full visible capacity (LVFC). Big car or Little car - LVFC = Maximium allowed Gross.
Priority if any is generated by the needs of the customer. Vessel scheduled to sail in the morning - the train is 'hot' to complete the loading. Chickens are about out of their food grain - train is 'hot' to keep the chickens fed. Every industry that deals with bulk commodity has some situation the increases the priority of specific bulk commodity trains - absent those conditions the railroad will handle them in accordance with their overall operating plan.
Never too old to have a happy childhood!
Covered hopper? Isn't that a frog under some leaves?
Semper Vaporo
Pkgs.
...and here I was, all ready to explain about aggregate hoppers, coal hoppers, and old woodchip hoppers!Yes, covered hoppers, please!And, as has been explained, the heavier the commodity, the smaller the car that can be filled with it. Ideally, all fully-loaded cars of recent build (say, this century, maybe older) will weigh the same.
Carl
Railroader Emeritus (practiced railroading for 46 years--and in 2010 I finally got it right!)
CAACSCOCOM--I don't want to behave improperly, so I just won't behave at all. (SM)
Alleged to haul kitty litter:
http://rrpicturearchives.net/showPicture.aspx?id=1502088
ChuckCobleighAlleged to haul kitty litter: http://rrpicturearchives.net/showPicture.aspx?id=1502088
Appears to have a paw print of approval!
deleted
Sometimes it's the crew on board that gets the priority treatment. Our Long Pool crews get preference, even when they're on junk trains and are going to be changed out enroute and finish their trip in a van. Crews that are getting short on time, with either no plans to call or none available to call, tend to get get preference.
Jeff
Sand and bulk cement are among the heavier commodities shipped in covered hoppers. They usually go in 2 bay 40-45' cars.
Our potash trains are composed of 3 bay 45-50' cars.
Grain usually goes in 60' 3 or 4 bay cars.
Plastic pellets and wood pellets are among the lighter cargos, they usually go in 65-70' 4 bay cars.
I've seen heavier commodities shipped in larger cars, in this case some bays may be left empty or not fully loaded.
Greetings from Alberta
-an Articulate Malcontent
SD70Dude I've seen heavier commodities shipped in larger cars, in this case some bays may be left empty or not fully loaded.
IIRC, one of the Bull Session columns in MR touched on iron being hauled in gondolas during WW2 due to shortage of ore jennies. Loading consisted of two piles of iron ore with each pile centered above the trucks.
The ultimate would be tungsten ore.
SD70DudeI've seen heavier commodities shipped in larger cars, in this case some bays may be left empty or not fully loaded.
The "Taco" (taconite) trains through Deshler (Toledo to Middletown) for a long time ran with standard hoppers. The cams there are well above the ROW, so look down into the cars. There were many times when you couldn't see the load at all.
These days they're running shorter cars better suited for the purpose. They don"t appear as short as the ore jennies one sees on the Missabe Range type trains, but they're still far shorter than a regular hopper.
If you want to see them, check out the Deshler rail cams between 10:30 PM and Midnite (the time varies).
Larry Resident Microferroequinologist (at least at my house) Everyone goes home; Safety begins with you My Opinion. Standard Disclaimers Apply. No Expiration Date Come ride the rails with me! There's one thing about humility - the moment you think you've got it, you've lost it...
tree68 SD70Dude I've seen heavier commodities shipped in larger cars, in this case some bays may be left empty or not fully loaded. The "Taco" (taconite) trains through Deshler (Toledo to Middletown) for a long time ran with standard hoppers. The cams there are well above the ROW, so look down into the cars. There were many times when you couldn't see the load at all. These days they're running shorter cars better suited for the purpose. They don"t appear as short as the ore jennies one sees on the Missabe Range type trains, but they're still far shorter than a regular hopper. If you want to see them, check out the Deshler rail cams between 10:30 PM and Midnite (the time varies).
In the 1970's most of the iron ore imported through the B&O's Curtis Bay Ore Pier would go to ground storage - the pier would load it into dump trucks and the trucks would dump it on designated pads in the Curtis Bay area. At some later point in time orders would be issued for the ground storage ore to be picked up and loaded into rail cars. Big bucket front end loaders would pick up a specified number of bucket loads and dump them in one end of the car, and then the specified number of buckets in the other end of the car.
The cars were coal hoppers that had been dumped at the Curtis Bay Coal Pier and had been inspected for integrity to be able to be used for ore. Iron ore being heavier than coal, the contents of the cars were not visible from outside. At the time of this operation coal hoppers were 50 ton, 70 ton, 85 ton and 100 ton. Normally the 70 ton cars were used for iron ore. While the load was not visible from outside the car, the groaning and creeking of the track structure would identify the car as being heavily loaded.
The presence or absence of ore loading defined if Baltimore Terminal would be operating in a power surplus or a power deficit. Normal 150 cars coal trains would arrive being hauled by 3 units. 150 empty hoppers could be hauled back to the mines with 2 units. 75 car ore trains required 4 units to be hauled out of town.
Those trainsets use to get a backhaul of coal to CSX's TORCO dock in Toledo. Most of that coal was destined to Ontario Hydro's now decomissioned Naticoke Generating Station. Since the backhaul has evaporated. It makes sense to move the taconite pellets in smaller hoppers.
JPS1 The BNSF unit trains are headed to Galveston, I believe. They probably are carrying export commodities.
Along the Central Gulf Coast, plastic pellets are a very common bulk comodity. As others have indicated, these products are relatively light weight, so would use the longer of the covered hoppers. However, I have no knowledge of any unit train operations for plastic pellets.
When the grain export buisness is booming, we would see unit grain trains, some headed for the Mississippi river export grain elevators form Baton Rouge, south to New Orleans.
from the Far East of the Sunset Route
(In the shadow of the Huey P Long bridge)
Erik_MagThe ultimate would be tungsten ore.
SD70DudePlastic pellets and wood pellets are among the lighter cargos, they usually go in 65-70' 4 bay cars.
Plastic pellets also ship in cars with pneumatic outlets - they have special discharge ports where hoses are connected and the load is literally vaccuumed out, not gravity dumped.
Apart from size, pay attention to the discharge outlets on the cars, as there are different arrangements here for unloading.
Chris van der Heide
My Algoma Central Railway Modeling Blog
ChuckCobleigh Alleged to haul kitty litter: http://rrpicturearchives.net/showPicture.aspx?id=1502088
Since it was brought up, here's another: the small lettering at the bottom centre of the car reads "leased to Golden Cat Corp" (the two links under the "Other photos" section on this page are detail shots, one of which is a close up of this lettering:
http://canadianfreightcargallery.ca/cgi-bin/image.pl?i=acfx57515&o=ge_railcar
These otherwise non-descript ACFX cars used to come into a place near Brantford, ON.
Our community is FREE to join. To participate you must either login or register for an account.