Sunday Photo fun 8/26/07

[Jumijo]

Thanks for the info, Dave. Nice work! Nice photo! You Massachusetts guys sure are talented!!

Below is a before and after decal job I just finished. This used to be a blue Conrail car. I used some left over orange paint (#20 orange for you NASCAR fans).

Here is the car after I decalled it with Micro-Mark decals. I bought blank decal film and drew the artwork up in Adobe Illustrator.

 

I left the car in the glossy finish because I think it looks good that way.

Jim

 

[fifedog]

Nice smooth finish, Jimbo.  I see what you mean about those decals.  Like how you took the time to do the sliding door rails;nice touch.

[Brutus]

Jim, looks great!

[FJ and G]

Brick Factory Railway most have never seen

Visited the Glen-Gery brick company capital region factory in Manassas, Virginia yesterday evening. A supervisor gave me a quick tour of the plant and I took photos with my cheapy Coolpix camera.

At first, I thought the railway inside was narrow gauge but found it to be standard gauge, using, I’m estimating, 25 pound rails. I was covered in red brick dust by the time I completed the tour.

There are several plants, probably 3 football fields in area. There’s a real railway that loads bricks into boxcars (no photos yet) and the plant itself contains probably around 50 tracks. Several of the tracks go perpendicular to the other tracks and I was fascinated to see how the cars change directions. You will see several photos of special transfer cars that do this neat trick. The tracks also extend outside to where bricks are stored in large piles. There are many piles there as brick demand at the moment is low.

The brick cars are pulled by one of 3 means: electric trolley locomotives (complete with trolley poles that pull a wire along a trolley line), cables, and Bobcat.

There is a yard for holding the bricks, tracks that push the cars thru a fiery kiln, holding tracks for them to cool and a completely separate railway for a brick dust reclamation operation that works a trolley on an elevated track. There’s even a RIP (repair in place) yard for repairing broken trolley cars. I’d estimate maybe 200 or more cars but I’d need to do an interview to get better details.

The manager says this plant was opened around 1960, but he seemed fuzzy on details and since it was after hours, he was the only one on duty. He’s been working there 15 years and said he and others might soon get laid off due to slow housing market.

I thought it interesting that these bricks are still made in the USA, as so much is in China.

Hope some of you might share my enthusiasm for this very interesting operation.

At first



brick car



trolley



trolley pole



brick holder made of stone, in the shape of a rail!



RIP track with underground repair area



kiln fire seen in distance; very hot area (causing me to sweat)



yard (cable holder on ground and Bobcat)



transfer track and locomotive, electric powered











spoked wheel on one of transfer cars



other transfer cars not spoked (I didn’t learn how transfers are done as nothing was moving)



cars ready for transfer





Bobcat



separate building and railway, elevated, brick powder (reclaiming plant railway photos are all below)



right view of previous view; shows arm extending off trolley where the dust is collected



elevated electric locomotive



elevated track



manual stop put in place so car stops and goes other direction automatically; there are several places where these are located so the cars can stop and go in various locations



another view of elevated locomotive; remotely controlled



outside view





didn’t go to the other side of building where Norfolk Southern (ex-Southern, has a sidetrack, where bricks are offloaded from boxcars. No boxcars in recent month because of housing problems.

My plan is to contact a magazine like Trains or NG & Industrial Railways and see if they’d like an article, then go back and do interviews and use my Canon Rebel camera for more photos and diagram the processing of bricks from start to finish. There are other brick companies in the area like this that have railways.

[cnw1995]

That would make a great article. Like to see the trolleys...

[kpolak]

brick holder made of stone, in the shape of a rail!

The brick holder is actually an extruded shape similar to steel 'I-beams' (H-shape) and columns.  Similar shapes are made from concrete, with reinforcing steel.

Interesting that the bricks are just piling up...It wasn't too long ago there was a 6-month wait on some bricks...The building would have been up and running by the time the bricks arrived.

Great photos!  Can you get into the steel mills too???  Ingots on the tracks are just awesome!

 

Kurt

[FJ and G]

Hi Kurt,

 

Been to a steel mill with lots of tracks in it as well (Atlas Steel). But that plant closed and a new smaller one opened w/out tracks. Just the overhead tracked thing that picks the steel up and sets it down. On pondering, guess that qualifies as railroad.