I know a coal burning steam locomotive makes a lot of cinders and even a modest sized servicing facility generates a considerable amount on a daily basis. So how are those cinders handled? Let's say as an example a certain facility generates 2 carloads of cinders a day. Would those cinders be hauled away in MOW cars? Or maybe dedicated service (but still the same age and style as current equipment) cars? Or just any cars available including foreign road? And lastly were cinders generally hauled in gondolas or hoppers after "automated" cinder conveyors (like the Walthers model) came into general usage? I'm trying to get a feel for how much would be handled during an operating session by the hostlers and yard crew and how much equipment should be on hand.
Good Luck, Morpar
Keep in mind a LOT of cinders ended up on the roadbeds. It's been said the roadbed along Sand Patch Grade is still about six inches deep in cinders, the "ghosts" of the long departed steam locomotives that battled the grade.
In yards and servicing areas cinders were used as ballast, believe it or not, and on the roadbeds of some railroads as well, which kind of lends veracity to the story of a roundhouse foreman asking a railroad official "What are we gonna do for cinders?" when the first diesels began to arrive.
Cinders were also sold to concrete block manufacturers, hence the term "cinder block." Coal cinders were mixed with concrete to form the blocks.
How the cinders were moved most likely depends on their destinations but I'd guess hopper cars with some kind of dumping ability were the preferred method.
Googling "how much ash does a ton of coal produce?" gave me an answer of about 125-185 lbs. A 50 ton hopper of coal produces about 7750 lbs or just under 4 tons of ash. You would generate 1 car of ash for every 12 cars of coal.
How many cars of coal do you deliver to your coaling tower per day? Divide that by 12 and that's how many ash cars you need.
Dave H. Painted side goes up. My website : wnbranch.com
Okay, so I understand how cinders are made, how they are used, and even why they were used to start with. My original question is still who do the cars used to transport (no matter the quantity) the cinders GENERALLY belong to. Are they generally MOW cars? Older cars from the parent road? Or any cars available?
Short answer is "yes". Different railroads did it different ways at different times.
I model the RDG and have seen company service and RDG general service gons and hoppers. Generally older cars were used because there was no revenue on the load, why use a brand new car for that service. Company service is not necessarily "MofW".
Since ashes are generated relatively slowly, an ash car might be on spot for days or a week to accumulate 40-50 tons of it, so they wouldn't use a foreign car.
The most general answer would be an older home road car.
dehusmanGoogling "how much ash does a ton of coal produce?" gave me an answer of about 125-185 lbs. A 50 ton hopper of coal produces about 7750 lbs or just under 4 tons of ash. You would generate 1 car of ash for every 12 cars of coal.
Minus whatever ash goes up the engine stack.
MorparSo how are those cinders handled?
Are they hot or cold cinders? I presume that if they are hot the proper answer is "very carefully".
Cold, no need to handle them hot. No particular urgency to load them.
Every photo I think I've ever seen, whether real railroad or model railroad, showed the cinders being loaded into gondola cars. Marty McGuirk's "Model Railroader's Guide to Locomotive Servicing Facilities" seems to confirm this. The cover shows a suggested diagram of a steam era roundhouse / servicing facility, and notes a "Gondola for ashes" spotted under a hoist next to the ash pit, and further info is in Chapter Three: Ash pits and cinder hoists / Modeling an ash pit. Before mechanized loaders, the work was done by men with shovels, to it was easier to load the ballast into a gondola than a hopper car.
Since as mentioned the ashes/cinders were often used by the railroad as sub-ballast, they'd normally be loaded into cars owned by the railroad for online use. Plants tend to not grow in cinders, so railroads when laying track would put a wide layer of cinders down first, then put track and ballast on top of it. That's why you'll sometimes see (especially in steam era photos) a well-maintained rail line with a line of black on either side of the ballast.
Some of us older folks may remember when schools used cinders for their athletic tracks.
I have a few photos of ash pits and from my observation, it appears to me that smaller facilities use flat cars while larger centers use gondolas. This may have to do with how far the cars have to be taken once they are full. At a small center, the crews probably pull the small flat car out and spread the ash along the right of way or use it as fill locally. At a larger facility, the gondolas may be pulled to a yard to be dealt with differently.
Brent
"All of the world's problems are the result of the difference between how we think and how the world works."
On the NKP/Wabash joint line from Toledo to Maumee, there was a siding that ran along the two main lines, the main lines were all ballasted with limestone, but that siding sat entirely on cinders.
Also during the winter cinders were spread on sidewalks and streets prior to the use of salt.
Rick Jesionowski
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