I am building a grain elevator for my Wabash Columbia Branch layout and am looking for some shots of the part of these structures that actually loaded the rail cars. I have an aerial shot of the facility but I can’t make out the detail of the loader. My time period is 1963 and this was a fairly new elevator at that time, all concrete silos, and Brock drying equipment. I have searched Google and YouTube but didn’t come up with anything useful. Dose anyone have any shots they can share?
1963 they would still be loading 40 ft boxcars. It would be a pipe coming out of the elevator with a "long" flexible pipe on it to shoot the grain back into the corners of the boxcar, at least that's what I have seen in other places.
Dave H. Painted side goes up. My website : wnbranch.com
In the first chapter of Kalmbach's The Model Railroader's Guide to Industries Along the Tracks (the first one published, 2004, of the series) there are photographs showing workers loading a covered hopper from the top and a boxcar through the open car door and over the grain door/dam. Different pipe styles are shown.
This series of Kalmbach books are very helpful in modeling industries. I recommend them.
Mark
dehusmanIt would be a pipe coming out of the elevator with a "long" flexible pipe on it to shoot the grain back into the corners of the boxcar, at least that's what I have seen in other places.
That is what is on the elevator across the field from my window. Now this an old elevator, wooden, but still in use today. The pipe swings out from the building and has a flexible "hose" on it.
Was it covered or uncovered loading? If covered, you really only need to build the structure the cars were moved into (unless you're looking to super detail the inside). If uncovered, then the previous posts should help you out.
If you want more pictures, try the BNSF link for ideas, lots of pics that may help out:
http://www.bnsf.com/markets/agricultural/elevator/index.html
Ricky
"The true sign of intelligence is not knowledge but imagination."-Albert Einstein
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A couple of pix from this one---they might bring it a bit closer
If need be I got some more in the files at home
Any argument carried far enough will end up in Semantics--Hartz's law of rhetoric Emerald. Leemer and Southern The route of the Sceptre Express Barry
I just started my blog site...more stuff to come...
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Thanks everyone. It was an uncovered loading area. The weather is better here today so I may try and get out and get some pictures of some local elevators.
I have much interesting Grain elevator.
So,please show me your result.
Thanking you.
http://blogs.yahoo.co.jp/up1853/36056485.html
dehusman 1963 they would still be loading 40 ft boxcars. It would be a pipe coming out of the elevator with a "long" flexible pipe on it to shoot the grain back into the corners of the boxcar, at least that's what I have seen in other places.
A fun way of doing it, if possible, would be to have the elevator angled in such a position so the side of the box car can be seen. Get a box car made or in kit, cut and glue the door so it's open, then use some scale wood planks or brown grocery store paper bag to represent the coopering. That idea would be pretty cool (also just realized I could do a very similar thing with the feed mill if I go ahead and build my current plans) but might be a little difficult with the bigger grain elevators.
That is an awesome cut away photog too. Saving that one for my own collection.
MILW-RODR dehusman 1963 they would still be loading 40 ft boxcars. It would be a pipe coming out of the elevator with a "long" flexible pipe on it to shoot the grain back into the corners of the boxcar, at least that's what I have seen in other places. The first covered hopper was Southern Pacifics "Big John" built in 1965. It had a capacity of 4700 cu. ft., 200 000lb load capacity with around 230 000lg load limit, and the first ones were all aluminum construction of the body (hopper). The frame and trucks and all were still steel. I would say by '63 though that 40 foot boxs with "grain doors" were more common in use. Loading for these would be a bit different. Normally a 40 foot box car would be parked next to the elevator, and as mentioned a flexible hose would be used to load the grain directly into the car. Some coopering held back the grain, IIRC around 6-7 feet high, and made of either wood boards, very heavy paper, or I have heard in some instances thick cardboard sheets, nailed to the inside of the door frame (inside the box car). A box car specifically built for hauling grain had the "grain door" that I mentioned. This was a modified door that had a small opening towards the top with a hatch cover that could be opened seperately to load grain into the car. A fun way of doing it, if possible, would be to have the elevator angled in such a position so the side of the box car can be seen. Get a box car made or in kit, cut and glue the door so it's open, then use some scale wood planks or brown grocery store paper bag to represent the coopering. That idea would be pretty cool (also just realized I could do a very similar thing with the feed mill if I go ahead and build my current plans) but might be a little difficult with the bigger grain elevators. That is an awesome cut away photog too. Saving that one for my own collection.
There were plenty of covered hoppers prior to 1965, all the main manufacturers built them to inlcude the PS-2, General Americn Dry-Flo and some home built cars, not to mention the Airslides. While the boxcars were the majority of cars in grain service, some covered hoppers had started to encroach on the scene.
Early in my railroad career I worked as a freight loader in the LCL Freight docks. We would get many boxcars for freight loading that had failed to be cleaned after grain season which we would have to remove the Coopering from the doorways before we could load the freight. Most of the time it was heavy fibreboard abt 1/8" thick that had steel strapping laminated inside the paper that was nailed through into the car sides across the door opening to about 6 ft. high. That was in the late 70's. Could be easily modeled with brown paper bags cut to fit and glued into the door opening.
I once caught a train in my pajama's. How it got in my pajama's I'll never know... (sorry, Groucho)
Hmmm, funny, that's not what Trains had to say in their special grain issue earlier this year. Maybe there was just confusion because I didn't specify covered hoppers produced specifically for grain service. Kind of thought that was obvious but on my part. Thanks for chiming in ds, your post put things into a better time perspective. I think my RR (if used) will concentrate a little more on still using good ole box cars for grain hauling instead of covered hoppers. I did sort of plan that idea around the use of ExactRails new 4427 hoppers though. The article I talked about didn't go into real great depth about coopering, so it was nice to hear they were braced with the strapping. It kind of stuck in my head how a heavy paper based fiberboard material could hold back a few hundred thousand pounds of grain. The most they said about height was it went up about 2/3rds the height of the door. I had all this figured out once, how many buschels of corn a 40' box could handle weight wise, the height of the corn in the box. Of course I don't have that all on hand, and I know it is completely different for something barley or wheat.
MILW-RODR Hmmm, funny, that's not what Trains had to say in their special grain issue earlier this year. Maybe there was just confusion because I didn't specify covered hoppers produced specifically for grain service. Kind of thought that was obvious but on my part. Thanks for chiming in ds, your post put things into a better time perspective. I think my RR (if used) will concentrate a little more on still using good ole box cars for grain hauling instead of covered hoppers. I did sort of plan that idea around the use of ExactRails new 4427 hoppers though. The article I talked about didn't go into real great depth about coopering, so it was nice to hear they were braced with the strapping. It kind of stuck in my head how a heavy paper based fiberboard material could hold back a few hundred thousand pounds of grain. The most they said about height was it went up about 2/3rds the height of the door. I had all this figured out once, how many buschels of corn a 40' box could handle weight wise, the height of the corn in the box. Of course I don't have that all on hand, and I know it is completely different for something barley or wheat.
You would be correct with using the term grain service as most of the covered hoppers were used for other commodities. I think their reference (guessing as I didn't read the article) probably was towards the first widespread use of covered hoppers for grain sercie.
It quit raining so I went out to a local elevator and took these.
RedGrey62 You would be correct with using the term grain service as most of the covered hoppers were used for other commodities. I think their reference (guessing as I didn't read the article) probably was towards the first widespread use of covered hoppers for grain sercie. Ricky
Precisely. That's what I was meaning. Here's some qoutes from the article.
"The Big John, constructed largely of aluminum, was a 4,700-cubic-foot car. Although some large covered hoppers have continued to be built from aluminum, most of the cars used in grain service have been of steel construction."
"Clearly, the 100-ton car would make prairie branch lines and local elevators obsolete. The new technology prevailed, but railroads' efforts to take advantage of the large-capacity cars still makes waves."
"Among the earliest steel-covered hoppers for grain service were a 4,427-cubic-foot version from Pullman Standard and a 4,600-cubic-foot model from American Car and Foundry, both in the mid-1960's." The former car was designed mainly for wheat, which is somewhat denser than other whole grains, such as corn and soybeans. However, by the 1980's, railroads were looking for a car that would be suitable for all types of whole grain, and 4,750 cubic feet had become a standard capacity for the grain covered hopper. The typical grain car design of that era featured a rooftop trough for loading, three discharge gates, and straight sides with verticle reinforcements on the extrerior (although there were exceptions, notable the center-flow car from American Car and Foundry, with it's curved sides)."
So what I said wasn't wrong at all. What DID happen was I miss construed some of the years. Southern Pacifics Big John hoppers debuted in 1961. In 1865, the date I gave in previous post, was when ACF debuted the 4600 cylindrical hopper and Pullman Standard brought out there PS-2CD 4427 covered hoppers. The info came from Trains Magazine, April 2009 issue, article tittle Nice Ride!, page 42.
Here's a pic of a box car being loaded.
Is everything cleared up now?
The Big John hoppers were from the Southern Ry, not Southern Pacific.
kjd It should be Southern Railway, not Southern Pacific, that had the Big Johns.
It should be Southern Railway, not Southern Pacific, that had the Big Johns.
jwilliam33 The Big John hoppers were from the Southern Ry., not the Southern Pacific.
The Big John hoppers were from the Southern Ry., not the Southern Pacific.
A couple of thoughts...
1. boxcars were kept in grain service to a surprisingly late date. This included 40' cars after they ceased to be in general use. The logic of this was that
(a) the RR had the cars - and the money invested in them.
(b) the traffic included seasonal peak flows - providing special stock for this would have been expensive... particualrly if it had stood around waitting for the seasonal peak(s) for much of the year. The "redundant/obsolete" boxcars (especially the 40' cars) already existed/had been paid for... so it didn't matter so much if they were parked out of the way for months on end. (I've seen stuff about great strings of old cars being left on otherwise out of use yards, spurs and even shortlines).
(c) smaller/lighter boxcars could be safely used on the more lightly built lines that ventured way out into the grain lands... many miles of which were very lightly built and extremely lightly maintained. (I've seen pics in which the "main track" is barely distinguishable from the surrounding prairie).
2. Big covered hoppers are kind of the other side of the coin.
(a) they required investment - and not just in the cars themselves but in the loading/unloading facilities... old/existing facilities could be worked with, especially if they were modified, but - to get the best use out of the hoppers - new appropriate large facilities needed to be provided. (I don't know but I would guess that the Big John hoppers ran in blocks between facilities - shifting bulk grain as a comodity all year rather than working seasonally)
(b) Big/expensive cars need to be kept in traffic as much as possible.
(c) The bigger/heavier hoppers couldn't be used on many miles of old lightweight lines. As the minor lines shut down and the grain shifted to truck haulage to newer/bigger facilities te situation changed.
So, over a lot of years, the scene gradually changed.
I hope this helps
I don't know how to dig them out of the archive but there have been several threads about this over the last few years.
PS I guess that one thing you might do is fetch grain in to an elevator in boxcars and take it away in covered hoppers... two different trains for one industry...