Were they used for other things besides grain like salt maybe?
Perhaps once they were retired from grain service.
Not likely they were used interchangably. They would have to be cleaned completely if they were used for something like salt. Moreover, many of them have interior surfaces that would probably not weather something abrasive like salt.
I could be wrong. Gladly corrected.
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...
The reason i ask because i saw 3 cars for canadian wheat on a cn today and wondered where they could be going or doing in winter?
Grain transport via hoppers is not limited to harvest season. That's why there are grain elevators, to store it until someone pays a better price for it. If you watch the webcams, you'll see grain trains going by just about every day of the year.
Brian (IA) http://blhanel.rrpicturearchives.net.
People use grains (eat) during the winter...
Chris van der Heide
My Algoma Central Railway Modeling Blog
I also thought they were returning from being repaired maybe
I also thought they were returning from being repaired maybe just allittle sign of spring to come lol
Carloads and trainloads of grain move all the time. We farmers haul grain from our storage facilities all winter and it has to go somewhere after that. In my area, trainloads of corn move on the KBSR to Tate & Lyle, beans to ADM, and western wheat goes through here (Lafayette IN) on it's way to ADM milling in Beech Grove. Also, the same cars haul DDG from ethanol plants, and byproducts from corn and soybean processing plants. I don't think these cars are used for fertilizer or salt, but do not know for sure.
Here on the Gulf Coast, we see a lot of covered hoppers hauling plastic (pellets or flake, etc,). But we also have seen unit grain trains to the lower Mississippi River grain elevators.
Question: Other than location of the cars, how can one tell a "Grain Hopper" from a Plastics Hopper?
from the Far East of the Sunset Route
(In the shadow of the Huey P Long bridge)
JC
By the cubic capacity. Plastic is less dense so cars are larger holding tonnage capacity constant.
By unloading system. Most grain is simple moving plate outlet. Most plastic is a pneumatic connection.
By reporting mark. Most grain cars are railroad owned. Almost all plastics cars are private cars with last character of reporting mark being X.
Mac
JC UPTON Question: Other than location of the cars, how can one tell a "Grain Hopper" from a Plastics Hopper?
Bottom gate outlets.
Plastic pellets are shipped in cars that use pneumatic unloading, rather than a standard gravity-dump.
http://canadianfreightcargallery.ca/cgi-bin/image.pl?o=rdix&i=rdix20137detail3
Hoses are hooked up to the outlets and the product is sucked out using a vacuum system.
Pellets are also light, and tend to be shipped in larger capacity cars with four hopper bays vs. three.
Also not to be confused with pressure-differential cars that used pressurized air to blow out the product, and these cars will have a complicating discharge piping arrangement connected to the hopper bay bottoms. These cars are used for finely powdered commodities, like talc, powdered clays, flour, cornstarch, etc.
http://canadianfreightcargallery.ca/cgi-bin/image.pl?i=cglx60717detail1&o=cgtx
Even standard gravity dump cars can be somewhat specialized to a particular service by size or interior linings. e.g. sand is very heavy, and shipped in small 2-bay cars. dried distiller's grains (DDG) - a leftover byproduct after producing ethanol from corn - is very light and shipped in very large four bay cars. Grains and many types of fertilizers and dry chemicals are shipped in similiar looking 3-bay cars.
There really aren't too many powdered or granular substances that aren't hauled in covered hoppers. I remember seeing a list some time ago of what is hauled in covered hoppers and it wasn't a short list.
Individual grain hoppers can also be going to custom milling operations. Of the two we have here in Denver (Ardent and Rocky Mtn Flour) that I am aware of, neither has much for track or storage capacity for their small lot business. (One would have to bulldoze a building to expand.) Grain comes in from all-over.
Don't forget those BNSF "worm" trains heading to California. Watch the Tehachapi, Flagstaff, Barstow or Belen rail cams and you will see one or two a day. They seem to leave Belen at about 160 3-bay cars, four engines on the front and two on the rear. I have seen commentary that they add three engines at about the 100th car when they hit Gallup, which is believeable because when they come through Flagstaff, all nine engines are there. I recall seeing a picture in Trains of one such train along the Columbia river heading for Modesto.
EDIT: Just checked and found one coming through Tehachapi at about 6:20 PM or so, Thursday. For a while, that was the usual time frame, but over the years, they have managed to become more random in their arrival times. Tonight's visitor had a slightly different engine layout, three on the front, two in the middle and three on the rear.
Once upon a time on the forum.
https://cs.trains.com/trn/f/111/p/116038/1332277.aspx
Jeff
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