While trackside the other day I watched a mixed manifest train pass that appeared to have several types of covered hopper within it. I noticed that many of them specified things NOT to do to the car:
-hammer sides,
-clean with water,
-clean with steam,
-enter without “Rubber Soled Shoes”
I am guessing the markings have to do with the linings of the cars, can anyone enlighten me about what those differences mean and what may likely be carried in them? Thanks!
Hammer the sides is self explaned do you want to put a dent in the side of a rail car that hauls food were it could spoil. Same thing with Water it will cause stuff to stick if your hauling Flour Sand Sugar anything that can stick when WET. Some things when they get wet like to BURN or GO BOOM. No Steam you heat up the insides than drop the lids they have a gasket on them. YOU just made a 60 foot VAC BOOTLE they will IMPLODE on themselves. The rubber soled shoe is to prevent damage to Food Grade Linings.
Covered hoppers are not used as ‘free running’ cars to load virtually any commodity load by load. Instead they are used in relatively captive service to transport the same or compatable commodities. Soybeans, wheat or corn are all compatable commodities. Potash and any variety of grain are not compatable commodities. Covered hoppers are used to transport a very wide variety of commodites, much wide than those few I have listed.
The prohibition on hammering the sides is meant to preserve the structural integrety of the car. (in a industrial setting, the hammers used are not the 2 pound ballpeen that you have in your shop). The prohibition on cleaning with water or steam would be to either prvent damage to the car lining or to prevent unintended chemical reaction with commodities that have violent reactions with water. The prohibition for other than rubber soled shoes woul be to prevent damage to the cars lining.
Interesting. So if you can’t use water/steam what can you use then? Is that something the shipper/receiver does “when they’re done” with the current load or before it’s loaded? Maybe a separate facility? I heard WSOR has a place to clean them…something like 50 cars/week.
Generally you can use a food grade detergent and high pressure warm water when cleaning cars used in food grade service. Once this has been completed, you go back in with high pressure warm water rinse, close hatch covers, close gates and apply seals to every hatch cover or outlet gate or valves in case of pressurized cover hoppers. On cars without a lining, high pressure warm water will do the trick.
You want to clean the car’s interior after each trip when it has interior lining. If you don’t do this, the lining will absorb the products moisture and once it gets embedded, you have to replace the lining.
You do not want to hammer on sides of the car since this will damage the exterior paint causing rust and interior lining damage. Interior lining will only stretch so far before flaking occurs. You do not want flakes to get into corn meal and etc. Even though the meal is filtered as it comes out of the car, it will cause concern for the customer saying you have a lining failure.
You do not want to use steam to clean the car’s interior. Lining will only tolerate heat a few times before failing. You use steam to clean plain covered hoppers without lining to remove fish meal. Fish meal is considered by the AAR as contaminating which is covered under Rule 95.b. Once a car is loaded with fish meal, keep it in that service.
You want to wear rubber lined shoes so it will not scratch the lining. Generally when cleaning cars, the only time you go inside a car is when there is product hung up in the corners.
I have not dealt with the WSOR RR in a long time. I do not know what their present cleaning capacity is but I did use them in the late 90’s to clean cars for me. Covered hoppers(plain and PD)and gondolas.
BALTACD,
Thanks for that response. When you think about it it manes a lot of sense.
Don’t put a torch up against an LPG car.
The plastics industry is another one that doesn’t appreciate contamination of any sort. A lot of the cars with warning against hammering the sides are for use in transporting plastics. This probably has to do with the flaking or cracking of the interior lining.
A few cars to watch when you are using a torch is a tank loaded with ethanol and a insulated box car. Ethanol has a flash point of 26F and it does not take much to burn through a side or end of a insulated box to get to the insulation.
After rinising a plastic pellet car, you have to go inside and wipe it down or dry it using a heater used to dry the inside of a car that has had high bake lining applied.
The inspector of a plastic company looks inside the car before loading, sees water stains and he will reject the car. He thinks it’s residue from a previous load.
Plastic people will reject a whole car load of pellets with 3 or 4 pellets of a different color on top of a different color in the same compartment. They think there are different colors of pellets through out.
Same capabilities as you remember. https://www.wsorrailroad.com/customers/washout.html If you have some cars to wash, send them up. We need the work.[;)]