hi there all; being some what new to grain industry and from so cal ,i went on a buying binge of what I thought were late 1959/1960era grain cars but later see that the top hatches are different on my covered hoppers than on other grain covered hoppers ,whats the difference?
mine ALL have round hatches and build dates of the 1950s ,I got a new blue box car that looks the same but has long rectangle hatches on top but 1960s build date ....have I been collecting the wrong type a hoppers for grain ??? ....Jerry
The grain business mostly shipped in boxcars until the 60s, and some elevators continued to ship in boxcars well into the 70s. The earlier hoppers with the round or square hatches off to the side of the center running board are not typically used for grain, more likely sand, cement or other non-edible commodities. Hoppers with the long cneter trough hatches were developed as grain shipping changed by the mid 60s and elevators began converting their facilities to load hoppers.
Rob Spangler
I don't what all the designs of covered hoppers are but I have quite a few. Some I have are for chemical or plastics companies and have a single row of round hatches down the center so I naturally assume that configuration isn't used for grain hoppers. The ones I have that I know are grain hoppers have either a single row of rectangular hatches down the center of the roof line or two rows of round hatches, one row left and one row right of the roof center line. Then I have some that came clearly marked as grain cars that have a single row of round hatches down the center. You can't always tell by looking at the model as there are model makers that take liberties on things like that. So that leaves me confused about which is which. Hoppers with two, three or four bays are used for different purposes - hoppers of the two bay design would be used for the dense heavy loads like sand, while four bay hoppers would be used for lighter loads. This is determined by the cars axle load limits - as an example, dry cement is very heavy in bulk quantities, and a four bay hopper of sand would very likely exceed the limits and would have problems with increased strain on the central span. So by trading off cubic capacity, two bay hoppers are able to transport these heavy loads. As technology advanced, some heavier loads that were assigned to two bay hoppers have been assigned to larger three bay hoppers.
Dr. Frankendiesel aka Scott Running BearSpace Mouse for president!15 year veteran fire fighterCollector of Apple //e'sRunning Bear EnterprisesHistory Channel Club life member.beatus homo qui invenit sapientiam
The round hatches are for cement or chemicals.
Box cars were used for grain in the 1950's and 1960's.
Grain hoppers weren't really common until the late 1960's or 1970's.
Dave H. Painted side goes up. My website : wnbranch.com
This was an issue for me as well, as I started buying rolling stock a few years back. One of the tricksters was this Corn Products Corp Airslide hopper (you would think grain right?) http://www.walthers.com/exec/productinfo/932-3723
But, I never considered what happens to food grade corn on the other side of the plant, these cars probably haul corn meal & other corn flour type of products exiting the processing plant, & headed for our tortillias & what not. So if you have any grain proccessing mills, you could still use some of your cars, or save some of other future industries.
I also agree with what the previous posters stated about the round & long hatches, & Jeffery's car length & weight considerations.
Generally, yes, small hoppers with small hatches are for sand/heavy stuff. the larger hoppers are not, brcause to fill them would cause them to bow, and to not completely fill them is a waste of half a car.
Also, as they said earlier, 1959/60 is transitioning from boxcars, but only just. Some boxes, but not all, would be marked "clean lading only". They put up wooden sides in the cars, filled them, and then shut them really fast. To get to the product, one cut down the wood panels. I had a thread asking about clean lading early this year, and there was an MRR ad about grain boxes somethime in the last two or three.
-Morgan
well you guys aren't telling me anything that "I should of known "in the first place ...ah but a cement plant well have to be Incorporated somewhere...
now more on the box cars ,how do you determine what is a candidate for grain duty ? was there a specific type a box car used besides being clean inside ?
thanks for the lesson in "do your research",guys again thanks ..Jerry
Typically 40' box in good condition (lost grain from a loose floorboard is lost $$), single sliding door, and that's about it. Some cars were equipped with a 'grain door' where a small hatch was built in towards the top of the door so no wood panels or reinforced paper panels were used to hold back the grain. The main door was just simply closed and the small 'grain door' was opened and the loading chute was aimed inside.
Industries Along The Trackside by Jeff Wilson has a chapter (the first IIRC) on the grain industry. The book covers more industries and is worth the buy no matter what you model. He has four books out now and I have the 2nd and 3rd in the series. I plan to get the other two. I have read both books a number of times and now talking about them I will end up reading them again. The three I have read are good reads in general, not just for prototype information relating to model railroading, even though that is the general purpose of the books.
Modeling wise, I feel box cars would be more fun. A 40' box with one door in an opened position and some heavy brown construction paper or paper grocery bag covering the opening, going about 2/3 to 3/4 of the way up the opening. I do enjoy covered hoppers though. My favorites include PS 4000 and 4427 three-bays, ACF 2600 Airslide two-bays, the venerable PS 4750's, ACF's round-bodied 4650's, and modern 5200's. I have been cose up to a prototype 6400 cu ft capacity quad-bay plastics hopper (from ACF I do believe) and it is truly monsterous.
thanks ;Berkshire good info and I Like the heavy paper idea for grain doors . I also did the late night research using the search on this site ,got a lot of info.I do enjoy Jeff's books also and need to read instead of looking at the Pict's, mite save me from these kind of lessons ...thanks again.Jerry
Jaeger Products used to make printed paper door closures. As I understand it, the doors on the boxcar could either be closed with boards and/or the paper grain doors to about 1/2 to 2/3rds the height of the doorway. On UP boxcars at least, there were painted markings on the inside of the car showing the allowable heights for different grains. My father-in-law remembers going down to the Co-op to "cooper" some boxcars - nailing the wood inside the door. Remember that the common 40' steel boxcar had a wood lining inside - the farmers would nail to that. The heavy paper grain doors had advantages - the car's door would be opened, then an employee of the receiving firm or elevator would cut through the paper with a sharp knife allowing the grain to start flowing out. Some large facilities had "tippers" that would rotatte the boxcar to get the grain out,. Most facilities had to finish the job with shovels or "Mormon boards" - a board attached to a winch and cable. The board acted like a dozer blade to clear the remaining grain from a car. Hot, dirty work either way!
In Canada if you see a hopper with 4 foot letters : SASKATCHEWAN GRAIN CAR CORPORATION you can be sure it's used for hauling grain, here and in the U.S. Northern states you can be sure the product is wheat, in Central and South U.S. it's probably corn or other crop seeds.
T one time, someone made a model of grain boxcars, a wooden slat across the entry way. I don't know who did them though, Wereti me, I'd not use construction paper, but toothpicks, or balsa, a little more realistic.
binder001 Jaeger Products used to make printed paper door closures. As I understand it, the doors on the boxcar could either be closed with boards and/or the paper grain doors to about 1/2 to 2/3rds the height of the doorway. On UP boxcars at least, there were painted markings on the inside of the car showing the allowable heights for different grains. My father-in-law remembers going down to the Co-op to "cooper" some boxcars - nailing the wood inside the door. Remember that the common 40' steel boxcar had a wood lining inside - the farmers would nail to that. The heavy paper grain doors had advantages - the car's door would be opened, then an employee of the receiving firm or elevator would cut through the paper with a sharp knife allowing the grain to start flowing out. Some large facilities had "tippers" that would rotatte the boxcar to get the grain out,. Most facilities had to finish the job with shovels or "Mormon boards" - a board attached to a winch and cable. The board acted like a dozer blade to clear the remaining grain from a car. Hot, dirty work either way!
Also, specifically speaking with corn, the weight per bushel can change depending on moisture content. I do beleive the preffered is 15%, which as i mentioned is about 55# per bushel. But if the corn had a higher content (+15% moisture) or "wetter" it would be heavier; the inverse was true for "drier" corn (-15% moisture) would be less weight per bushel. So if an elevator had say corn with 12% moisture, they could fit a few more bushels of corn into a 40' box than there competitor down the tracks and still be at the same 50T capacity.
Other grains also varied on weight, corn being a rather heavy grain. Grains like wheat, oats, and barley weighed less per bushel than corn. I don't remember how sorghum ranked. A lot of what I gathered I got from Jeff's book, and also searching around. I thought Jeff could have gone into more technical detail, but then again I can also read through Steven Hawkings A History In A Nutshell and be fully enthralled with the read, which is a very technically written book with facts, figures, and theorems that could make your head explode if you didn't understand.
I worked summers for Santa Fe in Enid Oklahoma while going to college. I usually worked as a car clerk or yard clerk. Enid is a major grain location, and part of my job was to read seals on the grain box cars (1950's) and record them. Union Equity elevators were major players and as many as 70 cars per track ran into the unloading area. The grain guys liked the paper doors because they were easy to open and discard, wood doors not so easy. The elevators emptied grain out the door of the box car into a large under the track pit. The cars (later covered hoppers) went onto the track, were held down by clamps and the contents of the box cars went into the pits. Then the drag line brought the empty car out and down the track. Of course when the covered hoppers started showing up, they had to segregate them between covered hoppers and box cars as the covered hoppers dropped their loads.
It was great fun to watch. My dad didn't like the mix as he was a switch engineer for Santa Fe and segregating the car types was time lost. When they quit using box cars, life got better.
Bob
BerkshireSteam Other grains also varied on weight, corn being a rather heavy grain. Grains like wheat, oats, and barley weighed less per bushel than corn. I don't remember how sorghum ranked. A lot of what I gathered I got from Jeff's book, and also searching around. I thought Jeff could have gone into more technical detail, but then again I can also read through Steven Hawkings A History In A Nutshell and be fully enthralled with the read, which is a very technically written book with facts, figures, and theorems that could make your head explode if you didn't understand.
Here is a link to a website that has a list of the standard weights of various grains at their standard storage moisture .You have to look near the bottom of the page. The standard weights are underlined
http://www.ag.ndsu.edu/pubs/ageng/machine/ae945w.htm
The volume of a bushel is also explained (1.244 cu. ft. per bushel) so the volume of grain per car could be determined. .
Wheat weighs in at 60 lbs./bu
Oats at 32 pounds; barley at 48 pounds, corn at 56 (55 is close) pounds; and soybeans at 60 also.
I think I put a few grains in the wrong category. One thing to watch for is something like Oats will reach car capacity before it reaches car load limit, while corn and wheat will reach load before capacity. Off hand all the different grain covered hopper sizes I can think of by various manufacturers are 4427, 4600, 4650, 4740, 4750, 4780, 5161, 52XX, 6400. All are 3-bay hoppers except the latter giant one, which is mostly for light loads like (oats) and a thing called DDG, Dried Distillers Grains, a by-product from the ethanol production process. There is also DDGS, but that is just the distillers grains mixed with a little (corn) syrup hence the "S" tagged on. These are both used in animal, along with some other disgusting things that would make you want to stop feeding them to your poor Holsteins, but is actually good for them.
Like I say, I'm full of knowledge that most people don't give a crap about. Sometimes it comes in handy. Anybody need new valve seats in their cylinder heads? Or how dragon flies do the nasty?
g&gfan BerkshireSteam: Other grains also varied on weight, corn being a rather heavy grain. Grains like wheat, oats, and barley weighed less per bushel than corn. I don't remember how sorghum ranked. A lot of what I gathered I got from Jeff's book, and also searching around. I thought Jeff could have gone into more technical detail, but then again I can also read through Steven Hawkings A History In A Nutshell and be fully enthralled with the read, which is a very technically written book with facts, figures, and theorems that could make your head explode if you didn't understand. Here is a link to a website that has a list of the standard weights of various grains at their standard storage moisture .You have to look near the bottom of the page. The standard weights are underlined http://www.ag.ndsu.edu/pubs/ageng/machine/ae945w.htm The volume of a bushel is also explained (1.244 cu. ft. per bushel) so the volume of grain per car could be determined. . Wheat weighs in at 60 lbs./bu Oats at 32 pounds; barley at 48 pounds, corn at 56 (55 is close) pounds; and soybeans at 60 also.
BerkshireSteam: Other grains also varied on weight, corn being a rather heavy grain. Grains like wheat, oats, and barley weighed less per bushel than corn. I don't remember how sorghum ranked. A lot of what I gathered I got from Jeff's book, and also searching around. I thought Jeff could have gone into more technical detail, but then again I can also read through Steven Hawkings A History In A Nutshell and be fully enthralled with the read, which is a very technically written book with facts, figures, and theorems that could make your head explode if you didn't understand.
This is interesting, at what weight per bushel does Capacity & Load weight equal approximately the same?
Thanks in advance!
Hi BIG JERR,
One of the great things about the era you're looking to model is that there was a tremendous variety of rolling stock in interchange service. A lot of new ideas were being tried out in car and hatch design. Don't be dissuaded from using your hoppers in grain service. You'll certainly want some box cars as well as some hoppers with elongated hatches, but round hatch hoppers were also used in your time frame. Here's a photo from 12/5/58 taken at the Washington Co-op elevator in Tacoma, WA. Note both a box car and a hopper with round hatches (probably a PS2) being loaded.