The prototype I am modeling has a large brick plant that I want to include on the layout. I am wondering what type of rail traffic a typical brick manufacturer would have. I have good aerial views of my prototype plant as well as several ones in my local area (I never realized there were so many rail-served brick operations!) It looks like nearly all have a loading dock where skids of bricks are shipped out by boxcar. Some also have covered unloading tracks with conveyor systems. I presume this is where covered hoppers of clay and/or open hoppers of sand are unloaded. I have seen some open hoppers of sand being unloaded in a few photos, but never any clay hoppers even though you can tell clay gets brought in somehow since there is a lot of “spillage” around the unloading pits.
Does this research seem correct? Does clay even move in covered hoppers? Would appreciate any more info anyone has regarding this.
I would not think clay would be shipped in hoppers. Clay is one of the most stickiest commodities that is very difficult to discharge. Raw clay from the ground likes to clump and stick to everything. Even our plastic lined dump trailers will get clay stuck to the sides and nose of the trailer. Another consideration is weight and density. Brick plants would more than likely receive raw clay in either a short side gon or side dump car. If the clay was dried and processed prior to shipping it could have been shipped in small shipping containers inside a box car. Pelleted clay could be shipped in small covered hoppers.
Another product brick plants would be served by rail is fuel for the kilns. Liquid, coal, coke, or some type of gas.
Sand, aggregate, fly ash,gypsum, pallets, and other raw materials are all transported by rail.
Load out would be in box cars or flats or even drop side or end gons.
Some very large brick plants also made concrete brick/block and other products like flew lining and pavers. There is also specialty brick like fire brick and sewer brick.
Brick manufacturing plants were commonly located immediately adjacent to the clay pits, so clay was typically received by conveyer belt or truck. It isn’t usually economical to haul low-value materials (in relation to their volume and weight) like dirt or limestone a long distance.
Even when the value of the raw material is raised by making it into bricks or cement, shipping the finished product long distances would also be uneconomical unless they were somehow unique. It wouldn’t be typical to ship bricks or cement across the continent. Purchases of locally produced goods could be made at much lesser cost when one takes into account the shipping costs.
Mark,While working on the Chessie we switch the Didier-Taylor Refractory at South Shore,Ky and we did indeed switch car loads of fire clay.It wasn’t unusual to switch several car loads at a time.
Also we switch out boxcars of brick.These bricks was usually billed to steel mills.
We never switch tank cars of fuel or coal.It was my understanding the kilns(rolling,tunnel and hive) was gas fired.
Unless it’s a brick plant that makes something so unique that it is sold throughout the country, all customers would only be local and the kilns would be near the clay pits. Products would most likely all be shipped by truck, not rail, except something exceptional such as the steel mill firebrick that Brakie mentioned.
I remember seeing a layout with a brick plant that was rail served. I will have to look for it. On the hand IIRC kaolin is made with a type of clay for coating paper. At least that’s how I understood it.
Thanks for all the good info so far everyone. Followup question regarding the outbound shipment via box car. On most (75%?) of the modern brick plants I have located, there is a loading dock where you can see box cars spotted. The photo below shows the Boral Bricks plant in Atlanta where eight box cars have been spotted for loading or unloading. I had concluded that these box cars were used for shipping outbound product, but a few posts have suggested bricks would not be shipped by rail. Trying to figure out wat these box cars are being used for. Jamie
Pallets of bricks are still shipped by rail. Inbound clay is usually shipped in older gondola cars, but I suspect most clay is local to the plant. The DM&E ships clay out of the Minnesota River valeey area.
On the south side of Milwaukee is an unusual brick operation that is, or was until recently, still rail-served. It reclaimed brick from old buildings that had been torn down. Much of it was the Milwaukee “cream” brick (yellowish when new, dingy gray as it got older during the coal burning era but often steam cleaned to look yellow again). I assume they chipped away at any mortar sticking to the brick. My undersrtanding is that old brick can bring premium prices, either for new construction or for repairs and alterations to historic structures. Anyway I have seen them load pallets of reclaimed brick into box cars. I was never able to check out just how filled the boxcar would be before it hit its load limit.
One interesting operation in the midwest was Purington Brick in East Galesburg (sometimes called Yost, sometimes also called Knox), Illinois. This was located right on the Santa Fe mainline but the factory was served by a spur from the CB&Q. There is a lot of information on the web about Purington – the made street pavers that are often seen on depot platforms. This website from an historic brick outfit has some pictures and info but Google “Purington Brick” and you’ll find tons more photos and information.
Mark,There wasn’t any nearby clay mines after 1900-the closest was Firebrick Ky(this outfit had a railroad powered by mules-the 4 legged type- that pulled clay dump cars on rail made from logs to the C&O loading site)…Years ago clay arrived by boxcar and was shoveled out by hand…
The shipments was to steel mills located in Gary,Chicago,Pittsburg,Warren and other steel mill locations.However,by the time I started working on the Cincinnati Division boxcar loads of brick was 1-2 cars a week due to the down turn in US steel mills and I suspect trucks cut into the boxcar loads as well.
As a side note,CSX’s list for jumbo hopper is:Bulk commodities like grain, fertilizer, flour, salt, sugar, clay, and lime so we can see clay is indeed hauled by coved hopper.NS also mentions clay shippers.
I know there was at least 1 clay mine in Greenup Ky but,that was miles away and by the 70s been closed for 30 or more years.
Brick is hauled in boxcars. The traffic volume has been reduced since around March '07 when the housing boom started to slow.
I know there was(is) a brick distributor with a small rail unloading dock near Legacy Station Hobby Shop on Hurricane Shoals. The one time I went to that shop I turned on the wrong road shortly before getting to the shop. I turned around in the driveway of the brick lot. Not for sure which railroad served it, but probably CSX. There were a couple of waffle side boxcars in the process of unloading.
There is also a brick distributor here in Acworth receiving brick by rail.
Augusta, GA also has a large Boral Brick plant. It used to be Murray Brick years ago. Not really knowing what I was hearing when I was kid in the '70s, I remember Murray Brick always being mentioned on the news for local stock numbers.
A brick distributor might be a good option to modeling the large brick plant. Not as many cars in, but it does save space.
The boxcars I have seen loaded with brick have only had one level of palletized bricks, approximately 5’ high. I believe all have been 50 foot boxcars. I don’t know if it is the order size or weight over volume that dictated this load size, but my guess it is the latter.
Glad you enjoyed it… Those weren’t your every-day bricks. They were specialty (refractory), high-value bricks. A person may want to consider this in selecting/naming his brick works.
Most modern brick is not shipped on pallets anymore. They are stacked and banded in a way that leaves room for forks to pick the cube. It has been quite a few years but I think there were 144 brick to a cube. I remember picking up trailer loads of brick in New Jersey and bringing them to Cape Cod. We would ask the lift truck operator to set the cubes to the side so they could be shrink wrapped before putting them on the trailer. At one brick yard near Boston there was a couple of bulkhead flats with cubes of sewer brick being loaded out. They were covered with cardboard and banded with 2 lift trucks loading from both sides. I had to wait for hours until one truck was freed up.
Wow…what a wealth of information. I am sifting through all of the historical brick websites. The brick industry is a great one to model: lots of traffic in relation to the size of the footprint. I think I am going to have one production building/warehouse combo with a single spur track/laoding dock for box cars and a double spur track for unloading bulk materials such as sand/clay. There will also be a large storage shed for the bulk materials and a conveyor system to take the materials over the tracks to the production building. The storage sheds are pretty unique in that they are large metal buildings with the lower half of the sides open. I’ll post a plan once I can figure how to fit this grandiose plan into my actual space available. Jamie
richardson brick co in edwardsville il had their own clay pit about 20 miles northeast of their plant, near new douglas il. it was located on the NKP and clay was loaded into the hoppers at an elevated truck dump ramp. i remember seeing 5 or 6 open top hoppers at the loading site most of the time. 20 miles was a pretty short haul but was obviously more efficient than trucking the clay at that time.
as for box car traffic, i remember a lot of brick coming out of ohio (near cambridge) on the former PRR and being interchanged to western connections at st louis mo. palletized brick is one commodity that is easily damaged by rough handling even when properly loaded and blocked. most cars were placarded “do not hump”
when i worked in the claims department, we used to intercept westbound loads of brick, open the car and photograph the load. if it was already damaged, we just played dumb, resealed the car and let the delivering carrier take part of the heat. if the load was still tight, we had photographic proof that the damage did not occur on our line. (heh-heh-heh) what? affixing blame is the standard railroad way of solving problems.
