Coal (open hopper) car air hoses

[Anonymous]

QUOTE: Originally posted by wayne

Thanks again for all the good info -very helpful an interesting. Wayne

The DMI cars did have only one brake pipe hose. I was told they mounted them above the coupler because piles of ore pellets in the gage at the mines and docks caused premature hose wear and hose partings. (That was certainly the cae at the PRR Whiskey Island ore docks where I worked, and where we occasionally borrowed a train of DMI cars). I just know they were a pain to couple in the trainyard if you had a unit train, and impossible if you ever had them kicked into a mixed freight.

There are pneumatic covered hoppers, mostly for products like plastic pellets. The slope sheets taper down to a round tube at the bottom. You attach compressed air to one end and the pellets are blown out the other end, usually into another hose that leads to a storage silo. You don't use locomotve air though, the cars are spotted at an industry or transloading site and are usually unloaded one or two at a time.

Covered hoppers that carry grain are gravity unloaded. The slope sheets taper down to a flat, horizontal door. A shaft with a pinion gear is attached to the door. The door frame has a gear rack. You put a long bar or a power wrench into a socket on the end of the shaft and crank the door open. Typically you would use a special electric wrench rather than a drill. You need a couple horsepower and a low starting torque so that you don't damage the rack and pinion mechanism.

[wayne]

Thanks again for all the good info -very helpful an interesting. Wayne

[ChrisBARailfan]

QUOTE: Originally posted by cypriano

They use a drill? Besides the damage all the holes would do to the hopper, wouldn't it still be awfully show in draining the grain? Do they use rubber or cork to plug the holes? It sounds like a punch line to one of those ethnic or blonde jokes, "How does ______drain a grain car?"

I watched a little closer when I was sitting in traffic this morning, it is a drill with an attachement, not a bit, that turns a mechanical piece of some kind that opens the bottom of the hopper and the grain falls through to the collection system underneath the track. I imagine when that area of the hopper is empty the door can be closed and the worker can move to the next area. Most of the hoppers I see have 3 or 4 compartments.

[CShaveRR]

The air for pneumatic unloading of covered hopper cars (not grain cars--usually sugar, malt, flour, starch, plastics, etc.) generally comes from the unloading plant itself. I don't think I've ever seen a covered hopper car with a second air line.

Actually, the DM&IR ore cars I remember didn't have a second air line--they just had one train line mounted up higher on the cars. I remember reading about the reasoning behind this somewhere, but have forgotten where I could find it.

Locomotives are still equipped with only one train line, so trains with pneumatic-unloading hoppers are required to stop somewhere for the unloading system to be charged, before they enter the plant for unloading.

[Anonymous]

ccsshegewisch,............The second hose has nothing to do with retainers. Retainer levers are manually thrown by the conductor/brakeman while the train is stopped.

QUOTE: Originally posted by CSSHEGEWISCH

The larger hose is the regular train line. The smaller hose is probably for control of retainers from the locomotive for long downgrades. DM&IR has a similar arrangement for its mini-quad ore jennies.

[cypriano]

They use a drill? Besides the damage all the holes would do to the hopper, wouldn't it still be awfully show in draining the grain? Do they use rubber or cork to plug the holes? It sounds like a punch line to one of those ethnic or blonde jokes, "How does ______drain a grain car?"

[ChrisBARailfan]

Aren't most covered hoppers air/gravity dumped by some manual process. You would want the pneumatic when you wanted to dump multiple cars at once, whereas with a covered hopper most places can only unload one at a time.

At Hawthorn power plant the trains can dump 4 or 5 cars at once, but at a local ADM mill you can see the employees manually open the hoppers with some sort of a drill.

[wayne]

The covered hoppers (used for grain) I've seen do not have the 2nd line -- is that because they are unloaded differently? Perhaps the chutes are opened manually?

[csxengineer98]

QUOTE: Originally posted by CShaveRR

More likely, if these are newer aluminum cars, the second hose is about the same size (at least at the connection) as the trainline, and is used to charge up the reservoirs for the pneumatic hopper gates.

thats exactly what the second hose is... its used to open the hopper doors for dumping....not what someone above said about reatiners ...
csx engineer

[wayne]

Thanks for the info--much appreciated. They are tne newer aluminum cars.

[CShaveRR]

More likely, if these are newer aluminum cars, the second hose is about the same size (at least at the connection) as the trainline, and is used to charge up the reservoirs for the pneumatic hopper gates.

[CSSHEGEWISCH]

The larger hose is the regular train line. The smaller hose is probably for control of retainers from the locomotive for long downgrades. DM&IR has a similar arrangement for its mini-quad ore jennies.

[wayne]

I noticed that the Centralia, WA coal cars appear to have two(2) brake or air hoses, one on each side of the coupler - like parallel. What is the reason for this?