Musings....

[Mookie]

Been reading a really good book someone gave me! So of course, I have questions. I am still working on big projects in small increments.

Brakes - Independent, Train, Dynamic and Air. Can anyone explain the differences in short, simple terms.

Plug doors are?

Piggy Packers load boxcars - how do the items get arranged inside? Do they do it all by hand - or a small forklift inside the car?

Carl and Mudchicken are both missing. First is on vacation still, but the Chicken hasn't been heard from since he went west. Hmmmm - maybe Clark Kent and Superman?

Mookie

[cherokee woman]

Mookie, Mr. Locomutt would answer, but he's too busy laughing about Mudchicken!

And I'd like short, simple answers to your questions also.

[Mookie]

CW - I was hoping to get some answers to some questions w/o inciting a riot?

Plus - diet low in chicken right now!

Mook

[tree68]

OK, Brakes:
Independent - Loco only
Train - Whole train, via train line, triple valves, etc
Air - how the independent and train brakes work. While your car uses hydraulic fluid to distribute the pressure you exert on the brake pedal to the brake cylinders at the wheels, trains (and trucks) use air. There have been other threads on exactly how this works. Someone may want to review the topic in more depth as an individual post.
Dynamic - turns the traction motors into generators, with the electricity burned off via resistance grids. Listen carefully to the engine of your car sometime when you turn your headlights on. You'll hear the engine load down slightly. That's the load on the alternator. As applied to dynamic braking, the alternator is analogous to the traction motors, the lights to the dynamic braking grids. Again, a lot more can be said on the subject.

And plug doors: "regular" box car doors just slide in front of the opening, like the sliding door on a barn. A plug door first slides in front of the opening, then slides in between the jambs, like putting a plug in a bottle. "Regular" sliding doors stick out from the side of the car a bit (the thickness of the door). Plug doors are generally flush with the side of the car when closed.

This site has pictures of sliding and plug doors. Note, too, that the hardware on a plug door is more complex.
http://www.ysdindustries.com/products/doors/search/singleplug.asp

[edblysard]

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(the big gaps are where I am trying to get air back in my lungs)


Ha

[JoeKoh]

Mookie
a piggy packer is a big forklift that puts trailers on flatcars.as for forklift unloading boxcars got that job a couple nights ago. Car must have had some bad dog food in it because it smelled bad.
stay safe
Joe

[Modelcar]

Plug doors: Compare to the operation of the side door on most auto vans...You open the latch and the door unlatches and moves out of the opening and then slides back along side of the van as it opens.

[Mookie]

QUOTE: Originally posted by JoeKoh

Mookie
a piggy packer is a big forklift that puts trailers on flatcars.as for forklift unloading boxcars got that job a couple nights ago. Car must have had some bad dog food in it because it smelled bad.
stay safe
Joe

You are right Joe - I was thinking of the picture I saw of a piggypacker and put that in my mind with a boxcar. So you unload with a forklift, but who puts the items on the forklift - is this done by hand? All of it?

Yes, dog food would be right - cat food never! [:o)]

[coalminer3]

Most of the time, items handled by forklifts are palletized; i.e. put on pallets. The forks slip under the pallets, pick the load up and away they go. We ship and receive lots of stuff that way. Forklifts are truly handy critters that are available in all sizes and configurations. They're used load and unload trucks and railcars.

Pallets are generally wooden although I have seen some that are metal. Material on the pallets is generally in boxes and secured with metal or similar strapping. Boxes can also be covered with sheet plastic for protection. Sometimes, shipments are containerized. The materials handling process for these is basically the same.

Hope this helps a little.

work safe

P.S. In the day, a lot of this work was done by hand. BTW, anybody out there remember when lumber was shipped in boxcars and loaded/unloaded by hand?

[rrnut282]

It takes a steady hand to get the forks under a pallet without spilling the load. Most of the time I put my forks through the pallet in the handy slots that are built into the pallet.
Also most of the time we use plastic wrap to secure the individual carboard boxes on the pallet, not to protect the boxes. We have this neat powered turntable that wraps up the stack with an industrial version of saran wrap. Using metal bands to secure boxes to a pallet is almost passe, unless the boxes contain metal or machine parts (very heavy).

[Mookie]

ok - you have a forklift full of cat food bags on a pallet on the ground. [8D] Yes!!!!

Now you want to drive them over to a box car and put them inside....

You do so.....

Pretty soon you would have a box car with a lot of pallets right in the middle of the car and none in the ends.

So....how do they get from the middle of the box car into the ends of the box car? Another forklift inside the car itself, a lot of strong young men or they only just fill up the middle? My thinking is there is a small forklift inside each car - but that could get interesting, too!

[tree68]

QUOTE: Originally posted by coalminer3



P.S. In the day, a lot of this work was done by hand. BTW, anybody out there remember when lumber was shipped in boxcars and loaded/unloaded by hand?

I vividly recall seeing lumber unloaded that way into the late '60's - at the local lumber yard there was a long roller ramp (like they use to unload trucks) that ran from trackside at the siding into the lumber storage barn. One board at a time, down the ramp. Never went inside when they were unloading, but it had to be a long process....

[tree68]

QUOTE: Originally posted by Mookie

ok - you have a forklift full of cat food bags on a pallet on the ground. [8D] Yes!!!!

Now you want to drive them over to a box car and put them inside....

You do so.....

Pretty soon you would have a box car with a lot of pallets right in the middle of the car and none in the ends.

So....how do they get from the middle of the box car into the ends of the box car? Another forklift inside the car itself, a lot of strong young men or they only just fill up the middle? My thinking is there is a small forklift inside each car - but that could get interesting, too!

Actually, the loading would probably be done from a loading dock, at the same level as the boxcar floor. A plate would be placed to bridge the gap between the dock and the car, and the forklift gets driven right in! Voila!

If it was necessary to load from the ground, it would be possible to put a pallet jack (you may have seen them in grocery stores) in the car to shuffle the pallets after they were placed in the car by the forklift.

[dharmon]

QUOTE: Originally posted by Mookie

ok - you have a forklift full of cat food bags on a pallet on the ground. [8D] Yes!!!!

Now you want to drive them over to a box car and put them inside....

You do so.....

Pretty soon you would have a box car with a lot of pallets right in the middle of the car and none in the ends.

So....how do they get from the middle of the box car into the ends of the box car? Another forklift inside the car itself, a lot of strong young men or they only just fill up the middle? My thinking is there is a small forklift inside each car - but that could get interesting, too!

JoeKoh, I believe does this for a living and could give a better description. But the doors are wide enough to get the forklift in. You could run two, but I think things would get a bit complicated inside.

[JoeKoh]

2 forklifts would make it tight.
the pallets in middle were put straight in.After we removed the dunnage(big pieces of cardboard from the middle) proceeded to pull the pallets out. Alot of tight turning.and you want a forklift with a small mast if your in there.yes there is some hand unloading when someone sends you 6ft product on a 4ft pallet(messy)as for the other car It wasnt cleaned out before it came to our warehouse. havent got to load one yet.but that day might come soon.
stay safe
Joe

[Anonymous]

So, anyway, why DID the Chicken cross the West???????

Sorry, guys, I'll atone for that later.......

[CShaveRR]

Actually, Piggypackers don't load box cars. They put trailers (or sometimes containers) on the intermodal flat cars. They aren't quite like forklifts, in that they don't normally lift the loads from the bottom. The Piggypackers we used to have in our yard (now replaced by cranes) lifted trailers from the side (clamping both bottom and top), and containers from the top (using a special attachment). Huge machines, very impressive.

[Mookie]

Piggypacker - sounds like a good lunch at the local Burger King!

Mudchicken went west and must have struck gold or smog or got lost in traffic. Too bad, since it makes the forum a little less fun when he isn't here. But the Mookie is very patient and will wait for the chicken to cross the road again.....Carl is back, so maybe MC will show up too -

[bnsfkline]

MudChicken must have been confused for a MCdonalds by some Little kids...........lol

[coalminer3]

For rrnut: We see a fair amount of stuff with metal straps, You are correct that they usually show up on loads of parts, etc. that are indeed heavy and awkward. As for plastic wrap, amazing what difference a word can make; should have said "secure" rather than "protect" BTW, as you say, the turntables do make things a lot easier.

Thanks for the clarification.

For tree 68: Good to see someone else out there recalls unloading stuff that way. I recall our local lumber yard getting loads like that; generally Northern Pacific or Milwaukee Road boxcars; that wood smelled great, too.

work safe

[Anonymous]

re: unloading lumber from a box car. One summer I worked at a lumber yard and enptied a box car of 2 X 4's by hand onto a flat bed truck. took most of two days for two of us, one board at a time.