Other than sand, salt, cement and concrete what other commodities are carried in the two bay covered hoppers?
Sugar, Clay, Glass, Anthracite Coal (for water filters), Limestone Flux (for making steel)
Sugar is unlikely to be found in such cars; it’s usually transported in cars the size of grain hoppers (5161-5250 cubic feet) with sealed hatches and gravity-pneumatic outlets.
The Reading had a lot of 2 bay and 3 bay covered hoppers assigned to sugar service. They were easily identified by a blue box containing the “Return to” instructions and by the blue lines above and below the road name and car number.
Those were probably 50 ton cars.
Typical 100 ton grain car is 4500 cubic feet +/-. Wheat weighs 60 pounds per bushell. 3300 bushels is 198,000#. I do not have bushel/cuft conversion handy, and wheat cars loaded cubic full are overloaded by weight.
Modern cars 100 or 110 ton 2 bay cars are small cube compared to grain. Small cube means dense material something 65-70 pounds per cubic foot. I doubt that sugar is that dense.
Mac
Mac, 1 bushel = 2,150.42 cubic inches = 1.244 cubic feet. Working it all out, if the hoppers are filled more than about 90%, they will be overloaded.
These look to be 2-bay sugar hoppers.
http://thecrhs.org/Images/CR-8719-switching-Jack-Frost-Sugar-Refinery
Photo courtesey of the Conrail Historical Society’s page. They had a lot of tight, urban running down there in Philly. I wonder if that is why they used 2-bays.
Could well be. A lot of trackage down there was 250 ft. radius = 23 degree curves, from back in the day of 40 ft. box cars.
There was and still is a surprising collection of candy makers, brewers, bakeries, beverage makes/ bottlers, etc. that would use sugar in the greater Philadelphia/ eastern PA area - much of which came into the Port of Philadelphia back in the day - which may explain why the Reading had so many 2-bays dedicated to that service. For example, in addition to the one referenced in the photo that zugmann linked, there’s a little chocolate outfit in Hershey (ex-RDG main line), Blommer Chocolate in East Greenville (35 miles N. of Philly, ex-RDG Perkiomen Branch), etc.
- Paul North.
So what do they use nowadays? I’m pretty sure the cars in this picture would be retired by now.
I’m surprised to hear you mention Blommer…I would have thought that their plant just outside the Loop was their only one (go down to the City on a quiet morning and the chocolate smell pervades everything!). They, by the way, use modern Trinity-built three-bay (gravity-pneumatic outlets) covered hoppers for their sugar. (Blommer has spurs on two levels in Chicago–the sugar comes in on the higher level.)
Question: how many of these plants that used to use sugar now use high-fructose corn syrup, which is still delivered in tank cars able to negotiate curves like that?
Mill was torn down in the 1980s. Not much of an issue anymore. Still a branch or two down there with restrictions. Part of the reason NS still rosters those anceint sw1001s, I’ve been told.
I think the photo-caption said it closed in 1982, and was torn down in the late 1990s.
That image of the Jack Frost mill in Philly sort of answered a (rather low-grade) question for me, and wiki confirmed it:
AMFX 10100 series, ARI Through Sill, 3260 CU FT 2-bay covered hoppers are used to carry the mineral perlite for World Minerals across the USA.
Paul:
What does the bloomer map that you posted represent as far as 2 baby hoppers are concerned?
Blommer Chocolate Company
600 West Kinzie St.
Chicago, IL 60610
N 41 53.378’ W 87 38.578’
Right next to some very impressive main line curves !
-Paul North.
Paul what commodities did they bring in to the factory in 2 bay hoppers?
No idea, as to either the Chicago or East Greenville ¶ plants - never been to the Chicago one, and was mostly at the PA one during construction and occasional maintenance inspections and work, and not paying attention to the cars.
My point is just to support zugmann’s observation about RDG hauling sugar in 2-bay hoppers for the plants with tight curves in Philadelphia, by naming the types and names of a couple of them. That led to a coincidental observation from Carl, about 2 Blommer Chocolate plants, where each of us knew about 1 but not the other. That’s all.
- Paul North.
Ancient? Not really, they’re contempories of most of the Class 1 switcher fleet today and NS has plenty of road power as well of that vintage.
The only thing particularly unusual about them is their horsepower rating, which isn’t very common these days on Class 1’s (Outside of maybe a modern genset and such here and there, only a handful of 1,000 hp switchers on CSX and Amtrak remain, along with a sole SW900 on duty for CPR and a SW1 on Amtrak which are both sub-1000 hp and I suspect are shop switchers).
All other Class 1 switchers are above the 1,000 HP threshold.