Got stopped by a WB CSX coke train (probably K311, a regular move).
This train, as do other Coke trains seemed to have both “Coke Expess” hoppers and regular hoppers. The Coke Express hoppers were high cube hoppers while other hoppers were much shorter.
Obviously with the manufacture of the coke, the weight is greatly reduced, thus allowing hi cube hoppers. Why doesnt the industry simply go to uniform hopper cars for this commodity?
Ed
Quite possibly, given the fact that the steel industry is not as large as it once was, there may not be enough overall coke traffic to justify the expense of more cars.
I’m no expert, but this is the most likely explanation to me. Most of the steel plants in Granite City, IL are down, although I haven’t been over there for many years. Maybe someone else has a better explanation.
Most steel mills had their own coke batteries so shipment of coke by rail was relatively rare in the past. Coke ovens are an environmental nightmare and fewer steel mills have their own coke ovens. Shipment of coke is consequently more common than it was in the past but it is not a major commodity. Since it can be handled (albeit less efficiently) in conventional hoppers, there hasn’t been a big push to rebuild conventional hoppers into high cube coke hoppers in restricted service.
Where rotary dumping is not employed, high-cuve hoppers can be used for coal (for example) by not loading to the brim but watching the weight and loading accordingly.
Ed,
A rail car is a 40 year asset. Even if you lease it long term that is 15 years and you have bought it for the leasee. The carrier’s choice is to spend something like $80-90,000 each for purpose built cars, or enter into a lease having at least that present value, or simply grab some “will work even if not perfect” cars, which may or not be paid for, out of storage. Then consider how stable the traffic will be for the next 15-20 years and the wonder is there are any purpose built cars in the trade.
Mac
Coke is also moving between some “non-traditional” endpoints. The co-gen at Fort Drum, NY burned “petcoke” for at least a part of it’s productive career (it’s now burning biomass, after being shut down for a while).
Petcoke comes from oil refineries. I have no idea of the history of the product, though. The linked article doesn’t really say.
I’ll agree that it’s probably a “volatile” commodity (no pun intended), so investing large sums into new specialized cars might not make much sense, especially if existing equipment can handle it reasonably well.
Mac:
I think your explanation is on the money. Long term assets handling a commodity which does not have guaranteed cash flow.
What I find interesting, in a similar vein, is the rush to build new tank cars for the transport of oil. The lessees must be securing high leases. I am not so sure that oil will be moving via rail 10 years from now.
Ed
video of a BNSF coke train https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Pvz09Sqrc4&index=112&list=WL second hand coal gondola http://www.rrpicturearchives.net/showPicture.aspx?id=3643287
I’ve seen BNSF petroleum coke from the local refineries mostly in faded and patched BN bottom discharge hoppers.
CSX had those Coke Express hoppers built for that purpose, Ed (they might even have built them themselves at their Raceland Shops…I can’t recall). At the time, they didn’t know how long the coke business would last, but figured they could use fewer cars if they used these big ones instead of conventional hoppers (which was the time-honored way of carrying coke a few decades ago). The rationale was that the cars could be cut down to convert them to ordinary coal hoppers if the coke business didn’t pan out.
As the coke business seems to have hung around, we’re seeing more cars being converted into coke cars. A lot of these are old woodchip hoppers, which already had the high sides–they just cut a few sections out of these cars to make them shorter, and there you go!
There is another series of cars hanging around that were built for coke service. These cars are in the ISGX 3000 series, and are high-sided Bethgons (they were originally lettered BSCX, for Bethlehem Steel, and used in connection with the Burns Harbor plant). Interestingly enough, these cars are now used in ordinary coal service, and can’t carry the full volume they were intended to.
the video is BNSF train with GATX 3 bay steel hoppers and the pic is of a ISGX Bethgon.