What cars do railways use to transport sand??

[Anonymous]

I am just curious what type of rail car the railways use to transport sand from things like gravel or sand pits to places like a glass factory that uses the sand to make glass. Do they use something like a coal hopper or a covered hopper or something else. Thanks for any help.

PS Does anyone know what the heck happened to the Fort Madison web cam?

[jsanchez]

The insulation factory in the industrial park I work at receives covered hoppers of sand, pullman standard 60' cars and 55' ACF centerflows. These travel on the Reading & Northern.

On the Florida East Coast I used to see long sand trains of open hoppers, I believe they were ortner 40' hoppers.

James

[Anonymous]

Thanks a lot for the information James. I appreciate it.

[Anonymous]

Thanks a lot for the information James. I appreciate it.

[Anonymous]

The type of rail car used to transport sand depends on the quality of sand. The cars used to transport sand to a glass factory, for instance, are usually two bay covered hoppers, shorter than the three or four bay covered hoppers used to transport other commodities. This is due to sand being much heavier per volume than plastic pellets for example. Open hoppers seem to be used only when the quality of sand needed by a customer need not be as pure or protected as that of a glass factory. I hope this info helps.

[Anonymous]

Wow. Yea, that helps a lot. Thanks Emory. I am thinking about adding a sand pit-glass factory to my MR and wasn't sure what type of rail car I would buy to model it accuratley. Guess I will buy some 2-Bay covered hoppers. Thanks again.
Hypothetically, what type of business or industry would use sand that is not protected and dumped in open 3-bay coal hoppers? I have a lot of these already and would like to incororate them into shipping sand to some factory as well. Thanks for the help guys.

[BNSFNUT]

Fort Madison web cam is at livetrains.com

[Anonymous]

Perhaps you could use your open hoppers from a facility that quarries sand and gravel. I have a facility near me that receives gravel for use in concrete. As far as what type of industry uses sand not hauled in covered hoppers I'm not really sure. I remember seeing that the Arkansas & Missouri hauls sand in old ore jennies but to what type of industry I'm not sure.

[jsanchez]

Most of the open sand cars went to cement and cinder block manufacturing industries, I know some of the out bound products went in covered hoppers and 50' boxcars, so you could have some of these on your layout also.

Good luck,
James

[oltmannd]

Typical covered hopper used for moving sand http://www.rr-fallenflags.org/ww/ww1001h.jpg

-Don

[edblysard]

Hey Jim, it depends on what and who the shipper is. Alcola make aluminum, and needs a very clean, pure mica, so they ship in custom made covered hoppers, made from, aluminum. Cement plants need med to coarse "beach" sand, and they use just about any covered hopper. We use sand in out locomotives, to sand the rails, and we get it in old GRR rock hoppers, open top with bottom dumps. We have our own sand dryer, so wet donst matter. I have even seen sand shipped in old gondolas, in two piles, one over each truck.. My bet is because of the weight you couldnt fill a gondola to the top with sand, the thing would weigh so much youd bend the gondola.
Reynolds Aluminum also uses mica, (a very fine grain sand, almost as fine as talc) to make their aluminum and glass products, and they also have their own cars, a two bay aluminum hopper, vertical ribs about eight feet on center, two dump doors on the bottom, the cars is about two feet shorter in height than a trinity three bay. I remember seeing a model of one, I belive overland makes one. We serve a brass casting foundry which makes big brass fitting for the oil industry, and they use sand for their molds. They get it in old cement hoppers. Most of the ones we pull and spot there now have round hatches on the top, three on each side, and three sliding doors on the bottom. They cars are beats up, real bad, they are one their last legs..

[Anonymous]

I talked to my Father who worked at a sand plant just after World War II. The sand they Quarried was used for making windshield glass. They had a shortage of hopper and gons back then. But they had plenty of boxcars. What they would do is nail boards half way up the door of the boxcars. Then fill the boxcars up with sand. (Not all the way just half). The sand plant would hire transents (hobo's) to unload the cars.
TIM A

[CShaveRR]

Over 40 years ago, when covered hoppers were used for little else than cement, I remember pacing a C&O local that had picked up some gondola loads of fine sand (glass quality, we'd been told) at Rosymound, south of Grand Haven, Michigan (Rosy Mound was once an enormous dune, which was "mined" for its sand during the 1950s and '60s). I remember thinking that I wouldn't have wanted to be on that caboose when they got up to track speed (all of 40), the way the sand was blowing off those gons. These were, by the way, 40-foot, 50-ton, high-side gons, and seemed to be carrying pretty much a full load of sand... at least originally!

[edblysard]

Never saw sand done that way, but we get boxcars full of beans and other types of grain done like that...but they use a heavy cardboard and steel straps to block the doors. And I was wrong about the type of sand reynolds and alcola use, its not mica, which is a type of quartz, but silica, which is use in glass and aluminum.

[edblysard]

Did anyone think of calling cornning glass and asking their material shipping dept what kinda of sand and cars they use currently?

[csxns]

PPG uses 3 bay hoppers at their Shelby NC plant.PPG's Lexington NC plant sometimes get Big John hoppers.

[Anonymous]

While in college in the mid 50's my roommate and I unloaded a 50' boxcar of sand for molds for the Fargo ND iron foundry. The sand was very fine, dry and piled about three feet high away from the doors. We used scoop shovels. I have seldom worked harder than that!