Today I followed a semi that had one big ol’ rock on it. It was a sqaure cut of granite, about 7’X5’X6’. That was all that was on the truck, and it made the truck squat.
I know that a lot of gravel, sand, and crushed rock travels by train. Does anybody ship big ol’ rocks by rail anymore?
It’s been a while since I’ve seen anything like that (I doubt that there are many long-term customers for these), but a gondola would be good for three or four of them.
Does happen on occasion out here … I have a client that has a quarry that sells naturally weathered “rustic” basalt boulders (lichens and all)…Biggest issue is finding a piece of yellow equipment that can handle the rock w/o mangling it to the dismay of a landascape architect (regular architect with a tree stamp)…
Carl: Some of your ex-CNW limestone block bridge abutments found themselves moving from Iowa out into the desert.
There was an article in TRAINS or Classic Trains about an operation in Vermont, I think, that shipped granite for the funeral industry. Headstones and such. I think they were only putting one rock each on flatcars.
AgentKid
Rock N’ Rail which hauls crushed stone from Parkdale,CO often has a couple side-dump cars of boulders at the end of their trains. Probably for landscape applications. Hardscape is popular in CO - no water needed.
Most of that is rip-rap for construction projects delivered to Kelker/Colorado Springs in the Drennan Industrial Park. Parkdale, at the west end of the Royal Gorge, loads a combination of crushed rock and alluvial deposits left over from glaciation and the pullback of drainage from Tennessee Creek.
The air-dumps came secondhand from the Minnesota iron ore/ tacconite fields.
I saw a counter top company getting its big blocks of granite and other types of rock on rail cars. They would lift them out of gondolas with big hoist and slice them like loafs of bread. Could make for a interesting industry to model.
Brent
Based on what my wife paid for new kitchen counter tops, the railroad might want to put armed guards in the gondolas with those granite blocks. [(-D]
A big rock is just a big rock, unless you have the equipment and skills to slice it, form it, polish it and install it as counter tops. You are paying for all the effort that comes from making the big rock into a saleable rock.
Thanks Mudchicken for the clarification on those loads of rock on Rock N’ Rail. I can’t find a Tennessee Creek on the map in the Parkdale area. Could it be the Tallahassee Creek?
In Susquehanna County, PA, along RT US 11 yesterday saw a flatbed with three large rocks at least 10 x10 x 6 each. A lot for a standard flatbed.
Too much, actually. Were they hanging over the sides - 8 ft. or 8’-6" wide trailer ?
At normal rock density of 150 lbs. per cu. ft. = 4,000 lbs. or 2 tons per cu. yd., each rock would weight around 90,000 lbs. = 45 tons. So by itself, each rock is 10,000 lbs. or 5 tons over max. standard weight for tractor-trailers. Three of them would be 270,000 lbs. = 135 tons, plus the truck - that’s kind of incredible. Maybe they were pumice or some other lightweight volcanic rock instead ?
Here in Manitowoc, WI the Wisconsin Central used to bring in flatcars carrying four to six blocks of limestone from a quarry in Valders, WI. A giant front end loader with two prongs would unload them in the RR yard adjacent to the abandoned carferry dock on the Manitowoc River and then a crane or the same loader would would fill barges with rocks that tugs would tow to various breakwall projects. Rocks are still shipped by barge from here but they all come by truck now. When the rocks used to come by rail they would be resting on flat cars on a couple of old ties and secured by heavy chains.
The three rocks filled the flat bed front to back and side to side, so maybe 8 ft is more reasonable, but they were about square and no taller than a man.
In Wales, the newly re-opened Corris Railway, built in 1859 to serve various slate quarries, has for display purposes a flat car loaded with a piece of slate cut to the right shape for a pool table. (One of the few slate quarries in the valley still in business specialises in making slate slabs for pool and snooker tables). Apparrently it’s so valuable they have to lock it away at night!
Elsewhere in Wales, the Holyhead Breakwater Railway remained 7’ gauge until 1914 (two decades after the Great Western Railway abandoned that gauge!) partly because it’s prime function was carting huge rocks down from a quarry to repair the breakwater at Holyhead. In more recent times the HBR was popular with UK railfans as it was the abode of the sole remaining class 01 200hp 0-4-0 diesel switchers. Some info on this can be found at:-