Bauxite trains?

[Junctionfan]

Does Alcan or Alcoa require unit bauxite trains or do they ship it by barge?

[dldance]

I am sure that Alcoa uses trains to get bauxite to their Rockdale, TX smelters as these are not served by water. However, I havn't personally seen one.

dd

[edblysard]

They do.
Lots of them.
I have a photo from a friend in Brazil of a dual guage Bauxite train on narrow guage trucks, if you interested...

Ed

[Junctionfan]

QUOTE: Originally posted by edblysard

They do.
Lots of them.
I have a photo from a friend in Brazil of a dual guage Bauxite train on narrow guage trucks, if you interested...

Ed

I would like that very much thankyou.

[Junctionfan]

Where does all the bauxite come from for the smelters in the U.S? What kind of hoppers are used for it?

[tree68]

We see bauxite up here in northern New York all the time, headed for the Alcoa plant in Massena.

We had an incident with a "leak" a while back. Bauxite includes some fine powder and it was leaving a trail. Somebody saw it and called it in to 911.

There were several jokes about "baux" cars in that thread.

[PNWRMNM]

Junction,

The GN handled it from Everett Washington in cars that apeared to be grain hoppers. I suspect they were in assigned service. Check density to see how many pounds would go in 4750 cubic foot covered hopper. Should be about 200,000#. If more, would have to leave some cube vacant and probably load on scale. This traffic did not move in unit trains but in blocks of 10-15 cars as I recall. Went to Wenatchee WA and Columbia Falls MT. Wenatchee is shut down. Do not know about Columbia Falls. Power has gotten expensive in PNW.

Mac