What types of cars would be spotted at an aluminum plant? How are aluminum coils shipped?
Thanks
Chief,
It depends — if it’s an aluminum smelter, you would have incoming covered hoppers (like grain is hauled in) of bauxite ore as well as other dry bulk chemicals, some box cars of alloys and some box / gon / flat of repair items. Out going you would have box, flat and gons loaded with ingots.
If you are talking about an aluminium fabricator — you would have the above ingots coming in and the finished goods going out…
Aluminium wire would be shipped on large spools probably in gondolas.
Aluminium is smelted by electrolsis and requires HUMONGUS amounts of electricy. The smelters are usually located near a large cheap fuel source or near a large bauxite ore source.
Hope this helps.
John T.
Heya,
I work in an aluminum extrusions plant, making mostly building materials for windows and lots of flooring and beam parts for the transportation industry.
We take in huge ingots and aluminum logs delivered by boxcar and the finished products are shipped on trucks.
dwRavenstar
Dont forget the nitrogen for the extrusions. They are used in amounts required to maintain a specific computer controlled burn temperature.
Aluminum coils are special. I used to take them out of various Midwest facilities on a covered wagon. You could fit three “Eye to sky” on a single 48" flat. Those got braced, nailed and strapped to the deck in a prescribed manner every time. They would be sent to Brewerys like Anhauser Busch to be literally consumed by stamp mills into cans.
Aluminum and Steel were processed and handled very similar to each other. The difference would be the base materials and processes for each of the different metals. (Or alloys if you prefer)
Years ago ,while working for Alcan rolled products in Oswego,NY. Most of the rail cars running around the plant ,where CN ingot bulk head flats. Alcan shipped the ingots from a plant in Canada ,to the Oswego works to be rolled into sheet and coils.
Huge operation from start to finnish ,huge machines,cranes ,roller stands ,motor room ,ECT.
At the plant I worked in ,most of the coils where shipped out by truck .
I’ll go see if I can find a picture of the plant and post it.
Patrick
Beaufort,SC
Dragon River Steel Corp
Making HO scale steel by the ton !!!
and yet another one…
http://www.rrpicturearchives.net/showPicture.aspx?id=125198
These cars can be easly kit bashed ,using an MDC 60’ flatcar .This is proably a no no ,but a few months ago Railroad model craftsmen did an article on just such a car. I’ll have to dig it out of mag-collection to see what issue it was and get back to you.
Patrick
Chief,
The ALCOA smelter, down the road, where I worked 40 yrs ago ships everything from 12"x48"x196" logs down to bundles of 8"x 20" round ingots.
Forty yrs ago most was shipped by flat, gondola or box car. Today, a lot is shipped by 18 wheeler. At one time I loaded the freight cars, then for a while I poured the ingots. Then I decided I didn’t want to work in that heat, so I went to work for IBM fixing computers. Now I play with cows.[C):-)]
John T.
7 of em… whew is that heavy. I remember hauling just one of these on a 48’ flat with a CH Mack 350 and it was heavy.
If memory serves they went to Alumax in Lancaster PA on the old rte 30.
Those cars remind me of some I used to see on Conrail for steel coil service. It seems conrail had some old TTX bulkhead flatcars lying around and cut them down and added cradles for steel coil service. Don’t know if I ever saw them hauling aluminum though But I guess it’s possible.
Thanks for all the replies so far.
The information will help me in modeling the Kaiser plant in Trentwood, WA. I also was interested to know if they ship coil sheet aluminum in coil cars or boxcars as I plan to have one track enter the structure and load finished product.
Thanks again for all your help.
Mark
You can ship whatever you want assuming you have crane service inside that facility.
Forklifts need to be able to get to it from the side inside or outside.
In fact, much loading was done inside.