Hi all,
It’s my first time posting on here so I hope this is the right category for this question. I have been doing research for my layout into a cement industry and know that one of the industry’s I plan to modeling would have received clinkers and raw gypsum by rail. I have nailed down the way I believe the finished product would have been shipped (boxcars, covered hoppers) but I can’t nail down how these inbound materials would have been shipped. My layout is set around the mid-1950s and the Industry would have been served by Canadian National, if that is important. Thank you in advance!
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By clinkers, I assume you mean like fly ash from power plants. I think both were carried in open hopper cars. For a Canadian example, the shortline around Windsor, NS used open hoppers to haul gypsum, as viewed by Google satellite view. There is also a photo in the following:
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My word, but doesn’t this make the creative juices start to flow…
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There is a railway that hauls raw gypsum to Halifax where it’s loaded onto ships. I don’t recall the name but it is an active railway. Been to Halifax a few times visiting the ships that loaded the gypsum. Destinations were Baltimore and Tampa, FL. It’s used to make sheetrock.
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Fly ash is shipped in covered hoppers.
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I assume the plow is more for dealing with sand than snow. Snow deep enough to make use of that plow is pretty much unheard of there.
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I was thinking fly ash was anything left over after coal burning at a power plant, but I see that fly ash is what comes up the stack, and bottom ash and boiler slag is what is called that is left at the bed. The latter is what I meant to be carried in open hoppers. Nevertheless all of those power plant solid residuals can be used in cement.
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Maybe now, but I think that unit was built for White Pass and Yukon (although not delivered to them) with considerable likelihood of snow in mind…
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Makes sense, as the WP&Y would have to deal with snow.
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I was curious so I looked up the meaning of “clinker”.
Seems that “clinkers” are a manufactured product used in the making of cement. Fly ash is used as a replacement for clinker.
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Maxman, I’m sure that is accurate. But in addition, watch the movie A Christmas Story. The father comes up from the cellar enraged because the furnace has faulted and screams “It’s a clinker!” I believe he is referring to lump of coal that won’t burn and has fouled the furnace.
Regads, Chris
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It is called that here in the U.K..
The North British Railway (and I am sure other railways) used it around railway depots as a form of pathways and track ballast. The NBR also sold clinker and ash to other companies and farms who used it for the same purpose of pathways.
Maxman, just wanted to confirm that this was more of what I was referring to. From my understanding it is the material that would be shipped to the cement industry I am hoping to add, have gypsum added into it, and then eventually through some process ends up as Portland Cement.
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I’ve always udes the term clinker just as the others above have mentioned. Generally considered a defect in the bed bed of a coal fired boiler. Clinkers won’t have much of a chance to form in a travelling-grate or pulverized coal boilers.
Now I haven’t heard mention of SLAG which is the flux remainder from the iron and steel making process. Thousands of tons of this stuff was considered surplus and was processed by the mills to be hauled away for other uses.
With the greatly reduced levels of iron produced in North America of course slag is not as prevalent in the manufacturing processes. As a kid I remember many paths and driveways covered in slag. It was a cheap alternative to stone.
Regards, Ed
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