Balloon Tracks

[Willy2]

What is the purpose of balloon tracks? Are they like big wye tracks or some kind of sidings[?]

Curious,
Willy

[overall]

I'm not sure if this is a typical example of a ballon track or not but, years ago I worked at a coal fired power generating plant that recieved it's coal by rail. It would come in 99 car unit trains. The trains would come into the plant site with the switch being set to the diverging position and go around a big balloon track. As they went, they passed over a trestle. There was an electric trip mechanism on each car that opened the hopper doors as they moved over the trestle, thus dumping the coal through the trestle and on to the ground benneth where it would be pushed around by bulldozers. When the train was finished unloading, it could simply leave the site through the same switch it entered, now being set to the normal route, without any switching being necessary.

Hope I have not confused you.

George

[Anonymous]

Willy: George's explanation is very good. They are simply a big loop track with a single switch to enter and leave. In the 1960s, as unit coal trains became common, balloon tracks became the favored solution at power plants and coal mines, assuming the geography allowed it. There are many places where the mine is in a narrow canyon or the powerplant in a congested urban location and loop can't be made; in those cases, a siding and runaround move is required.

Balloon tracks are now becoming common for grain shuttle train elevators at both origin and destination.

Balloon tracks are also used for turning passenger and commuter trains at the end of a run, if you don't have push-pull operation and walk-over seats; for turning helpers; and for turning snowplows. They are particularly desirable for snowplows because no backing movement is required as it would be with a wye. Backing through deep snow is a good way to derail.

Interurban and street car lines used balloon tracks by the thousands, as do light-rail lines, to avoid having to use double-ended cars on light-density lines that couldn't justify two cars back-to-back, each pointing in opposite direction. As far as I know the term "balloon track" is not used in transit, however, perhaps because the radius can be so much tighter. "Loop" seems to be the preferred term in transit. Functionally, they are identical to a balloon track.

[Anonymous]

If I remember correctly, SP had a balloon track @ their yard in West Colton, CA.

[mudchicken]

Balloon tracks are nice IF you have the real estate to build it. If you do not have the room, settle for a wye with enough tail room. If all else fails, turntables are very expensive solutions.

5 years ago, we attempted to replace the turntable at Alliance, NE (BN, CB&Q in Mookie's world) with a loop track. This would not work account of extreme curvature, interference with some old caboose tracks and affects on work rules. They settled for a wye with little tail room. Ugly, but it worked....

La Junta, CO (ATSF) started with a wye (1879-1882), used several turntables (1883-1967) , a wye was installed and the turntable removed (1967-1986) and finally the current loop track (1986-today, which also got rid of a diamond in the engine service track area as well). The loop track made it possible to turn whole engine consists and avoid the MU crapshoot of getting all the connections to work. The thing just barely fit between the top of the yard and the Arkansas River that hemmed-in the east-west running yard on the north side.

[jeaton]

Willy2

The term probably comes from that line drawing of a balloon track it looks like a balloon on a string. As mentioned above, coal mines were among the first to design and use these when coal starting moving in 100 car (or more) trainload lots. The Illinois Basin mines usually had the space to build these tracks which were a mile or more around. I'm not that familiar with the Wyoming mines, but I suspect baloon track loading operations are predominent there.

Reminds me of a story. Old Ben Coal Company's Mine 25 near Frankfort, Illinois was under contract to provide its total production to Georgia Power and the load out operation was designed and built specificly for 100 car trains. Two silos each with 30,000 tons capacity were built over the baloon track and the design was for the train to move through at 1 MPH thus getting loaded in about an hour. As a car passed under the first tower, the discharge gate would be opened wide and load about two thirds of the car. Just as the car was about to move past the chute, the gate was closed. Coal from the second silo topped off the car. The second gate would be opened and the coal dropped through a shute positioned to trim the load at the top of the car. Here was the tricky part, close the gate too soon and the load was light. Close it too late and the shute would drag excess coal over end of the car on to the track below.

At the design speeds, coordinating the opening and closing of the gates for accurate loads wasn't that difficult. However, everybody wanting to get the train loaded and get out of town or go home, things would start to speed up. Loading times would drop off and get as low as 25 minutes to load the 100 cars. Eventually, a gate would stick or the operator would miss his mark and a ton or two off coal would get swept off the end of the car. Having no brains, the wheels would ride up that nice mound of coal and head off where ever. The next train would load at or above design speeds and that would continue for weeks, or, I suspect, as long as the assistant trainmaster would come by to check the loading operations. Soon, of course, the times would start to drop off... until the next time.

[Anonymous]

Upon rereading what I wrote earlier, I think I should clarify that I've only seen the term "balloon track" used to describe a loop that sits to the side of a main track, as opposed to a loop at the end of a line. The latter would merely be a loop track.

I've also seen it used to designate a track that connects the two legs of a horseshoe curve. The last example I am aware of the latter is at Fir, the summit of La Veta Pass on the Rio Grande line to Alamosa, though the switches to it are gone.

I think this term originally arose to describe a track whose principal function is to turn a train without a reverse move. Much later, the term was appropriated to describe a track whose principal function is to load or unload a train, and only incidentally turns the train as well. In fact, in many instances of the latter the train doesn't turn, especially at the unloading point: the road power drops the train off and sometime later, after the train has been dragged through the unloader (rotary or rapid-discharge) by the plant switcher, the road power comes back and couples to whichever end is convenient. I've seen plenty of coal trains come back out of the plant in reverse car order from when they went in, proving they never turned.

And on even more reflection, I think the derivation of the term balloon track comes from the fact that the track "balloons" to the side of the main track -- it swings way out, then comes back. In other words, the balloon comes from the verb form, not the noun form. But a half-hour looking through the railway engineering texts on my bookshelves does't come up with anything to substantiate that -- or deny it.

All of the Powder River Basin mines in Wyoming and Montana have loop tracks for loading trains. All of the Hanna Basin mines in Southern Wyoming did as well (all are now inactive for rail loading), but the Black Butte Mine over by Point of Rocks does not -- its valley is too narrow. In Colorado and Utah, approximately half of the mine loadouts have loop tracks; the remainder being restricted by narrow canyons to a runaround operation. As I run through power plants in my head, I can't think of any of any size that do without loop tracks, except in some eastern cities.

[M636C]

To expand on emory's comment about West Colton, the balloon, or loop track there is used for turning entire trains, and is something I never expected to see on a real, rather than a model railway. I was quite concerned that the radius was so tight that the light cars would be pulled over by the weight of the long train. I photographed a train going around, much to my satisfaction, but not to everyone's enjoyment.

As the train passed under the overpass west of the loop, a hobo jumped aboard what he assumed to be an eastbound freight. As it ran back under the bridge,heading west he jumped back off, shouting obscenities at the photographers (about five of us) who were almost falling over laughing, even those who didn't expect the reversal!

Peter

[jchnhtfd]

I think Mark has a point -- 'balloon' tracks (as opposed to loops) being somehow off to one side of a basically straight track... but, as someone noted above, loops are balloons are kind of handy for passenger equipment, and are not always limited by real estate! One of the most interesting being the loop tracks off the lower level of Grand Central Station, New York (about 1905) -- under some of the most expensive real estate in the world. Still in use, or at least one of them is (there were two; not sure about whether both are used any more).

[mudchicken]

Light rail (toy trains to freight railroaders) can turn with a radius of just less than 100 feet in some cases (as in PCC cars, etc.). A freight car or locomotive gets in trouble on anything much less than a 450 ft. radius (near a 12 Deg 30 Min Curve) when couplers bind and trucks can't turn fast enough causing wheels to "climb the rail" along with making coupling impossible. The areas required to balloon or loop get rediculous when you try to turn newer engines or freight cars cleanly.

[Anonymous]

They are like Mushrooms

[Willy2]

Thankyou for all of the replys! I really never knew that balloon tracks had so many purposes, I didn't even know what they were.

M636C: Funny story. I wish I could have been there to see that one!

Willy

[Anonymous]

QUOTE: Originally posted by emory

If I remember correctly, SP had a balloon track @ their yard in West Colton, CA.

[8D]your right they still do since there is no west bound lead out of colton yd they leave the yd goin east then switch to the main line then hit the loop and go west to LA or North to Bakersfield lots of people call it the LA LOOP [8D]