This Car Exceeds Plate F

[Paul_D_North_Jr]

RME, thanks for your thorough and technical explanation, but I confess I comprehend only about 1/3 of it - which is why I wasn't too sure about Fig. 8.  From John's writings I've discerned the intent and purpose of this, but little about the 'nuts and bolts' of it.  Maybe when I retire and have mnre time to learn about such things . . . 

- PDN. 

[RME]

Paul_D_North_Jr

... some kind of electrical set-up (Fig. 8), which is described as:

"FIG. 8 is a schematic diagram of the electrical circuitry in each power package responsive to relatively low voltage command signals from the preceding power package for transmitting relatively high-voltage command signals to the next power package;"

There's nothing really mysterious about this: if I understand correctly, and I think I do, this is 'standard procedure' for transmission of analog signals over long distances in a relatively (electrically) noisy environment.

The command signals -- think of them as a fancy kind of MU signal -- need to be passed down the length of a distributed-power consist; assume for a moment that it is rigged similar to a HPIT train with 20 platforms or frames or wells or whatever between power packages.  So it is amplified up to considerable voltage, much more than needed to overcome 'normal' resistance in the wiring run down the cars (and probably cleaned up and reshaped somewhat, at least if I were doing it).

By the time that signal gets to the 'next' power package, it will not be at its origin voltage, and may have a variety of imposed noise.  So we need circuitry that, regardless of incident voltage, generates the desired analog modulation carried in the 'command signals', opto-isolates and filters it as needed, and then clamps the voltage to appropriate levels and passes the signals to the components in the receiving power package.

The actuators and controllers on this power package were probably built to use comparatively low voltage (industrial DC?) and this needs to be amplified up again for transmission down the trainline.  In my opinion, it may make sense to take all the transmitted signals and 'normalize' them in voltage and waveform at this point, including those that are being passed through the power package without 'commanding' anything (such as ECP brake control).

This was in the era before digital communications became cheap and well-supported in industrial-control applications, but here, too, amplifying something like a PCM signal for transmission and then clamping it on reception is a sensible approach.  We now have a long experience with practical CNC, so this stuff is obvious -- I suspect it was not obvious in the mid-Sixties, in railroading.

[RME]

CandOforprogress2

Articulated Hopper Car? Why God Why?!

Because these weren't as good a way to get to corresponding capacity:

and the Rail Whale approach with span-bolstered double three-piece trucks at each end is overkill for coal gons and not very practical for hoppers that must bottom-dump effectively.

The Beth Steel articulated hopper (the lower picture) is actually a comparatively late development (circa 1968).  It distributes the load better across the axles and guides better than a battleship-gon design with the truck pivots at the quarter points, and has no difficulty being rigged for clean bottom dump.  I would not have been surprised to see this idea developed for unit train service after the manner of the FuelFoiler ten-packs, and perhaps five-unit stack-train sets, where continuous dumping and not rotaries were the preferred unloading method.

Strong need for articulation went away when large aluminum bathtub gons became practical, and of course rotary dumping (for coal) became essentially de rigueur.  And then the light tare weight construction was applied to sets of bottom-dump hoppers at 'normal' length and truck arrangement, letting railroads standardize on bearings, sideframes, etc. instead of needing proprietary and relatively unproven arrangements ... like those on the light-aircraft-built articulated hoppers Southern tried earlier in the '60s.

I believe NDG and some others have mentioned the specific rationale behind the Canadian articulated covered hoppers, and I'll leave the detail discussion to them.  Again, the arrangement gives better distribution of loaded weight and better tracking, and this is especially valuable on light rail or track with severe grades and curvature.

[CandOforprogress2]

Reefers like the Produce Xpress exceed plate F. Not many places left these days where Plate F cant travel

[CandOforprogress2]

Articulated Hopper Car? Why God Why?!

[Paul_D_North_Jr]

I'll respond to RME's valid points above at another time.  Meanwhile, I want to share something that I found while cleaning up my attic office this afternoon:

U.S. Patent No. 3,269,332 for "Railroad Car and Drop-Floor Arrangement Therefore" issued August 30, 1966 to John G. Kneiling of Staten Island, N.Y., assignor to Devenco Incorporated, New York, N.Y. (4 pages, including 2 figures). 

This'll be recognizable to anyone familiar with John, his Integral Train Systems book, columns, and articles.  To summarize - and I'm not using the format or formal Patent's "claims" because I think they're not very helpful to explain it for us, or well-organized (IMHO):

• Longitudinal hopper doors, hinged at the center sill (Enterprise Type D or Miner's similar one ?) with an air-operated latch and closure cylinders; 
• Center sill is a square box-type welded fabrication from 2 large steel angles; the space between can be used as a high-pressure air reservoir for the doors (!); 
• Articulated drawbars between the cars (except at the end, where a coupler would be used); and, 
• Electrcial heating means and insulation to keep the cargo from freezing to the sides of the car at low temperatures. 

Perhaps Mike/ wanswheel can find a way to post this Patent here ? 

The headnotes to the patent seem to indicate that the original application was split into this patent and another - Patent No. 3,199,463, dated Aug. 10, 1965.  That one seems to be for "Railroad train, railroad car and control apparatus therefor" - and it's the essentials of John's integral train system as mentioned in the description: 

https://www.google.com/patents/US3199463 

There's a brake cylinder mounted in the middle of a truck (Figs. 5, 6, and 7), John's high air pressure manifold concept (a 2nd air line for compressed air supply only, leaving the usual brake pipe to function to transmit the brake application and release signals only - Fig. 9), and some kind of electrical set-up (Fig. 8), which is described as:

"FIG. 8 is a schematic diagram of the electrical circuitry in each power package responsive to relatively low voltage command signals from the preceding power package for transmitting relatively high-voltage command signals to the next power package;"  

I probably should post this over on the John G. Kneiling thread too:

http://cs.trains.com/trn/f/111/t/228469.aspx?page=4#2552337    

- PDN.  

[RME]

Paul_D_North_Jr

And/ or some VP at the electric co. saying "I'll be damned if I spend any of our company's money to help those SOBs at that railroad!". Or something like that . . .

More like contrasting the amount of money involved with the train 'dwell' vs. the capital cost and carrying charges for the additional belts and transfer equipment to get the dumped coal more quickly built into the coal pile (which probably would involve some kind of traversing element at the required tonnage per hour) just to accommodate a trainload more quickly.

Personally, I'd think the cost for a rapid parallel belt system capable of accommodating 'a trainload in six minutes' to be orders of magnitude higher than the pro rata cost assignment for the train and crew imposed by the slower load.  This is similar to highway capacity questions, where the number of lanes and ramps needed to accommodate 'rush hour' traffic (and the associated cost) is comparatively large, but most of the 'plant' sits little used for extended periods of time between spasms of frenzied activity.

But if you can demonstrate with good numbers, to a utility that is still interested in large new investment in coal handling, that it can save meaningful bottom-line money by changing its "unloading" system, I think there is a good chance someone there will listen to you.  They certainly would at GPU or Duke Power.

[Paul_D_North_Jr]

BaltACD

Paul_D_North_Jr

So a few people need to get together to make it happen: the utility's coal buyer - who essentially pays for it all, coal + transport rates + unloading costs; the plant engineer, who can balance the rate savings with the costs for better conveyors or storage or whatever else they need; the railroad's operating people, who can quantitfy the crew and train time savings; the railroad's cost accountants, who can translate that into dollars; and then the railroad's marketing/ sales people, who can adjust the rate accordingly (and keep some of the savings for the railroad, of course).

 

Maybe some of the remaining CSX managers can do it ?  Or maybe not, since 2 railroads (CSX & NS) are involved ?  So maybe an outside consultant is needed instead ?  (I'll volunteer, for a piece of the savings . . .  ) 

 

- PDN

Something about leading horses to water, but you can't make them drink. 

For the most part, when railroads propose process improvements to customers the NIH factor springs into view and dismissed with 'your are a railroad' and don't understand our business well enough to change it.

You can't help those that don't want help.

And/ or some VP at the electric co. saying "I'll be damned if I spend any of our company's money to help those SOBs at that railroad!".  Or something like that . . . 

- PDN. 

[RME]

CandOforprogress2

So the writing on the side says that some valve has to be gagged for the car to move in transit. Ouch that sounds painfull.

"Gagged" in this context just means locked or tied back into the stowed position, so it can't extend to the active or armed position.  Think of it as an analogy for 'not being able to express itself' where a valve's ability to express itself is to actuate.

Think of the shoes as being like the pressure plates that work some handicapped-access doors -- note how shiny they are?  That's due to the friction of rubbing against an actuating rail when they are 'ungagged' and extended.  When they are pushed in, they actuate the valve behind them.

In this particular case, I think the risk of damage is more to the shoes -- they are not very large -- or to the valve mechanism than it is to another train, or to causing increased risk of derailment.  I believe there is little risk of the doors coming open if one or more plates on a car comes 'ungagged', and spilling its load on the ROW, as the air supply to the valves and actuators isn't pressurized until arrival (as an additional safety measure as well as economy).  I do not know whether the valve behind the plate is held 'actuated' when the plate is in the 'gagged' position, or there is some intermediate mechanism or secondary valve that arms the 'main' valve only when the plate is correctly deployed. 

[BaltACD]

Paul_D_North_Jr

So a few people need to get together to make it happen: the utility's coal buyer - who essentially pays for it all, coal + transport rates + unloading costs; the plant engineer, who can balance the rate savings with the costs for better conveyors or storage or whatever else they need; the railroad's operating people, who can quantitfy the crew and train time savings; the railroad's cost accountants, who can translate that into dollars; and then the railroad's marketing/ sales people, who can adjust the rate accordingly (and keep some of the savings for the railroad, of course).

 

Maybe some of the remaining CSX managers can do it ?  Or maybe not, since 2 railroads (CSX & NS) are involved ?  So maybe an outside consultant is needed instead ?  (I'll volunteer, for a piece of the savings . . .  ) 

 

- PDN

Something about leading horses to water, but you can't make them drink. 

For the most part, when railroads propose process improvements to customers the NIH factor springs into view and dismissed with 'your are a railroad' and don't understand our business well enough to change it.

You can't help those that don't want help.

[Paul_D_North_Jr]

BaltACD

CShaveRR

The shoes involved on these cars have nothing to do with brakes and everything to do with the dumping operations.

Paul, you're right about the efficiency--it doesn't take long to unload these cars, since it's basically like the bottom falling out when those gates are opened.  The rub comes when building the facilities for unloading them and gettng the coal away from underneath the cars efficiently.  Rotary dumpers cost less (probably in terms of space as well as construction) to operate.  And that's why you'll often see rotary couplers on the quick-dumping hoppers as well.

There is a coal fired Southern Company power plant on CSX's Lineville Sub.  the plant is also serviced by NS.  They use air dump hoppers with the entire train pulled onto a unloading trestle, the command is given and the entire train is unloaded in about 6 minutes.  Which is great - EXCEPT it takes Southern Company about 8 hours to clear out the contents from one train before another train is allowed to dump.  Trains from each carrier are frequently recrewed waiting for their opportunity to dump.

CSSHEGEWISCH is correct - it's the Erie Mining RR with the tires on the sides of the cars.  There's a photo or two of the cars in trains in that Sept. 1973 article (pg. 45, lower right), but they're dark and not close-up, so not much detail is visible.  The article says the system was invented and patented by Paul Giesking, "the road's first boss" (Supt. ?) (pg. 44, middle column).

 

The article says a 100-car trainload (8,200 "long tons" of 2,240 lbs., about 9,184 "short" tons) could be emptied in as little as 6-1/2 minutes at speeds of up to 10 MPH.  It went into 25 bins on the dock with a total storage capacity of 100,000 tons.  Multiple belts - each at 1,500+ tons per hour - were used to load the ships.  One ship mentioned (1,000 ft. long super-carrier Stewart J. Cort) would load 55,400 tons in a little more than 3 hours, which would be about 18,500 tons per hour.  That would imply about 12 belts being used (@1,500 TPH each ==> 18,000 TPH total for about 3.1 hours to load).

 

So Southern Company needs a new plant engineer, and to get some more or faster belts to cut down that clearing-out time.  You just know the railroads have 'baked in' the costs of the recrews and train time into the rates.  John Kneiling used this kind of thing as his case studies in his book Integral Train Systems, and pointed out that it's always cheaper to add more or faster belts than to delay the train.  (Belt salesmen like this principle, too - and benefitting them was not typical of John, so he must have believed it.)  

 

So a few people need to get together to make it happen: the utility's coal buyer - who essentially pays for it all, coal + transport rates + unloading costs; the plant engineer, who can balance the rate savings with the costs for better conveyors or storage or whatever else they need; the railroad's operating people, who can quantitfy the crew and train time savings; the railroad's cost accountants, who can translate that into dollars; and then the railroad's marketing/ sales people, who can adjust the rate accordingly (and keep some of the savings for the railroad, of course).

 

Maybe some of the remaining CSX managers can do it ?  Or maybe not, since 2 railroads (CSX & NS) are involved ?  So maybe an outside consultant is needed instead ?  (I'll volunteer, for a piece of the savings . . .  ) 

 

- PDN

 

[CandOforprogress2]

So the writing on the side says that some valve has to be gagged for the car to move in transit. Ouch that sounds painfull. I assume that there is a something like a air realease valve that would stick out to far and exceed "Plate F" and could sideswipe a moving train on the next track?

[mudchicken]

Figures -find an image that will translate to the forum and you get a picture of the back end of a folded-up clearance car. In the old days, you would stop, find something close to the track, measure it in two dimensions, plot it and move along to the next potential obstruction. At the end of the day, you had a flip book look at the clearance envelope of the line that you could try to fit a plate through. It's all digital now, but the same idea applies and all the hand calculations for curvature are a thing of the past.

[Jackflash]

 

 

 

CShaveRR

The shoes involved on these cars have nothing to do with brakes and everything to do with the dumping operations.

 

The air used to open the hopper doors does not come from the brake line,  it comes from the main reservoir on the locomotive, it takes about 30 to 45 minutes to charge a 100 car train to 130 to 140 psi less time if you have a DPU on the rear of the train and use it too.

[mudchicken]

RME

 

DSchmitt

Association of American Railroads Equipment Diagrams for Interchange Service (that is "Plates") 

http://www.icrr.net/plates.htm

 

 

Thanks!  I forgot completely that the OP might not know what was involved with "plate" clearances.

MC and others: can you provide links to both modern and 'porcupine' clearance cars so he can see how the 'plate' measurements are actually translated into clearances, and checked in the 'real world'?

 

"Porcupine" = Bamboo Peacock (more descriptive)...shoving that square car template through the round, real world hole can be a challenge, especially when it involves a load on a schabel car. You stay inside those plates to avoid contact with things like docks, passenger platforms (the people at SMART got stupid and thus all the gauntlet tracks out north of the Bay Area), switch stands, and all the other things expected to be out there. The Sperry Clearance (digital)cars are still making regular runs and there are still old manual systems like bamboo peacocks around (Just in case) to see what potential loads will foul, especially in curves and congested areas.

[Paul_D_North_Jr]

CSSHEGEWISCH

The rubber-tired wheel system was used by Erie Mining Co. to open and close their bottom dumps at Taconite Harbor.  Erie Mining was an intraplant operation and did not have to worry about interchange. 

One of these two, but I'd have to check: 

The other Erie

Erie Mining�s railroad

by Patrick, Howard S. 

from Trains September 1973  p. 41

EMX  mining  Minnesota  roster 

 

The pure railroad

Reserve Mining in Minnesota

by Morgan, David P. 

from Trains January 1969  p. 20

industrial  MAINLINE  mining  RMX  

- PDN. 

[RME]

DSchmitt

Association of American Railroads Equipment Diagrams for Interchange Service (that is "Plates") 

http://www.icrr.net/plates.htm

Thanks!  I forgot completely that the OP might not know what was involved with "plate" clearances.

MC and others: can you provide links to both modern and 'porcupine' clearance cars so he can see how the 'plate' measurements are actually translated into clearances, and checked in the 'real world'?

[DSchmitt]

Association of American Railroads Equipment Diagrams for Interchange Service 

(that is "Plates") 

http://www.icrr.net/plates.htm

 

[CSSHEGEWISCH]

The rubber-tired wheel system was used by Erie Mining Co. to open and close their bottom dumps at Taconite Harbor.  Erie Mining was an intraplant operation and did not have to worry about interchange.

[RME]

CShaveRR

The shoes involved on these cars have nothing to do with brakes and everything to do with the dumping operations.

Not perzactly true, because the air used to work the dump mechanism comes from the brake system*, and there is a switchover (which has been described in posts on this forum), probably when the dump shoes are gagged/ungagged and their valves armed - I suspect this is also the reason the shoes are not automatically armed or actuated in some way.

Anyone still remember the wonderful system an ore operator, I think Erie or Oliver, used to automate their bottom-dumps?  They had a rubber-tired wheel on the side that engaged a raised ramp, and in a squealing cloud of blue tire smoke this winched the conventional door opener around.  Another wheel on the other side did the closing honors.  Now THAT system exceeded plate F...

A problem with coal in general, but some PRB subbituminous in particular, is triturition (self-grinding)  during handling.  That is an additional consideration in using hoppers vs. gons.  Someone here with numbers can give us the exact tare vs. loaded weight of a coal gon and self-dumping aluminum hopper, and then extrapolate to weight and length of full consists (I am too lazy to wait for local coal trains and do this myself) - that may make it easier to assess the relative advantage of straight pull-through (with bottom dump) vs. stopping every couple of cars for the rotary.

*EDIT - as indicated in a later post, the air comes from the main RESERVOIR, not the brakeline per se.  As noted in that later post, multiple or distributed power speeds the pressurization.

[BaltACD]

CShaveRR

The shoes involved on these cars have nothing to do with brakes and everything to do with the dumping operations.

Paul, you're right about the efficiency--it doesn't take long to unload these cars, since it's basically like the bottom falling out when those gates are opened.  The rub comes when building the facilities for unloading them and gettng the coal away from underneath the cars efficiently.  Rotary dumpers cost less (probably in terms of space as well as construction) to operate.  And that's why you'll often see rotary couplers on the quick-dumping hoppers as well.

There is a coal fired Southern Company power plant on CSX's Lineville Sub.  the plant is also serviced by NS.  They use air dump hoppers with the entire train pulled onto a unloading trestle, the command is given and the entire train is unloaded in about 6 minutes.  Which is great - EXCEPT it takes Southern Company about 8 hours to clear out the contents from one train before another train is allowed to dump.  Trains from each carrier are frequently recrewed waiting for their opportunity to dump.

[CShaveRR]

The shoes involved on these cars have nothing to do with brakes and everything to do with the dumping operations.

Paul, you're right about the efficiency--it doesn't take long to unload these cars, since it's basically like the bottom falling out when those gates are opened.  The rub comes when building the facilities for unloading them and gettng the coal away from underneath the cars efficiently.  Rotary dumpers cost less (probably in terms of space as well as construction) to operate.  And that's why you'll often see rotary couplers on the quick-dumping hoppers as well.

[CandOforprogress2]

Yep The side of the car said some valve has to Gagged whatever that is...

[Paul_D_North_Jr]

"+1", especially since bottom-dump is much more efficient than rotary dump.

- PDN. 

[RME]

Very common to see this on bottom-dump unit coal trains; as dhusman noted, there are shoes on the side corners that control the doors, which extend out about 2" when armed and have to be "gagged" for travel.  There is usually a note about this painted on the car side close to the 'exceeds plate F' notice.

it would be interesting to know the specific procedure used on these trains to set them up for unloading and then to prepare them to return light.  I know only the theory, not the practice.

[Paul_D_North_Jr]

A reporting mark and car number would be helpful to see what is meant. 

- PDN. 

[BaltACD]

dehusman

It probably has some sort of visual indicator that pops out the side of the car a couple inches when the brakes are applied, which probably makes it a couple inches wider than plate F.  Same thing happens on automatically dumped hoppers that have a contact shoe that sticks out from the car.   That shoe, when extended makes it wider than the plate.

Such devices are normally only used where disk brakes are on the car and the application of the brakes cannot be visually confirmed in a normal walking inspection.  Very few if any freight cars are equipped with disk brakes, most all have clasp brake shoes against the wheel tread and thus have a separate easily visible piston assembly to apply and release the brakes.  The brake valves and piston are on the B end of the car.

[dehusman]

It probably has some sort of visual indicator that pops out the side of the car a couple inches when the brakes are applied, which probably makes it a couple inches wider than plate F.  Same thing happens on automatically dumped hoppers that have a contact shoe that sticks out from the car.   That shoe, when extended makes it wider than the plate.

[BaltACD]

CandOforprogress2

Seen on Coal Hopper Cars. Also for what ever reason the car exceeds plate F when  brakes are applied according to the sign on the side of the car? What the Freek is Plate F ?

Having brakes applied or not should make no difference in it's Clearance Plate designation.

The only kind of hopper I can think of that would exceed Plate F would be a wood chip hopper, where the car sides are raised above level that a normal coal hopper goes to.