Where I live, we are surrounded by corn- and beans. This time of year, I usually see at least 2 unit grain trains run by daily on the BNSF tracks out back. What I also see this time of year, is a little trail of corn along the tracks, like some covered hopper isn’t closed all the way.
If a car is loaded full in Parker, S.D. , and leaks a little trail of corn all the way to Duluth or Seattle, who pays for the lost corn? The shipper? The railroraod? The receiver?
Do you suppose there have been cases of of a unit train arriving at its destination with one of the cars completely empty?
Side note: you should see how fat the pigeons and crows are this time of year.[:-^]
The railroad will blame the shipper for not having secured the load. The shipper will blame the railroad for mishandling of cars causing the latch to come loose. The railroad will claim the shipper overloaded the car to begin with. The shipper will claim they have to because the railroad loses so much in transit. The birds will have a feast. Happens all the time.
There will be a claim filed followed by a claims investigation and a determinaiton made followed by a settlement. There are peramiters of what can be considered as lost and not lost. That is why there are claim forms and claim departments.
I’ve often heard of kids throwing rocks or coal pieces at steam locomotives so that the fireman would throw large chunks of coal back. The kids would collect the large chunks and take them home so that the family had fuel for heat and cooking. And the train crews knew and willingly heaved. Another story was of a guy boarding a slow moving coal train with sacks, filling them with coal and dropping them off at grade crossings along the way where his wife, following the train in the family car, would pick up the sacks and eventually him; the took off home with enough coal for the family for a couple of days. How claims for these situations worked, I don’t know.
I’m sure that if the shipper’s weight and the consignee’s weight (or volume, or whatever) were different, the consignee would file a claim against the railroad, and–one way or another–the shipper would receive a payment from the railroad to make them whole. The consignee shouldn’t have to pay for more than he received.
If there were a discernible stream of grain coming from a car, I would expect that an intermediate inspection would uncover it, and the car department would at least make an attempt to close the offending outlet.
Most of the cars that haul grain or such stuff are divided into compartments, so one gate probably wouldn’t empty more than the fraction of the car above the one outlet (the volume of each is usually stenciled on the hopper above the gate).
But I think what you’re more likely seeing is spillage from the roof of the car from sloppy loading, which would fall off the roof in routine travel. Having spent a good long career having to look at the roofs of such cars, I can attest to the crud that results from the grain that doesn’t fall off, and how some rots and some other germinates. You’d need a shovel and a hose to clean that mess!
I remember a thousand years ago where the railway stored their coal supply for steam engines west of town , people used to steal coal from the pile to heat their homes, they only did it once, the steam loco coal burned hotter than domestic stove coal and would warp the grates of the stoves so you had to purchase new ones, but I loved the smell of coal burning.
I worked a station that was heated by a large pot belly coal stove. The location of the station had both coal and coke trains passing with their resultant loss of lading. With the ‘spare time’ available at the station the employees would reconnoiter the station area and collect all the coke that they could find. When the below zero days of winter hit - a little coke helped the fire in the stove burn hotter and keep the employee area habitable…yes, we did use up grates at relatively high rate during the winter…the price of surviving below zero weather.
When there were still a large volume of covered grain hoppers being set out at Pavilion, Michigan I do remember seeing grain on the top of one car. Birds were landing of the top of the covered hopper that had a coating of yellow corn.
Near one end of the siding in 1994 there were very tall wheat plants growing through the thin layer of old ballast.
Not really sure…in fact I doubt it, now that I think about it. But there must be some way of measuring the stuff from which a claim could be made. Guess we’ll just have to wait until an expert weighs in (ooooh…sorry!).
Although I see scale test cars running around, I can’t recall seeing any active scales for freight cars. The elevators that I see that load out grain trains don’t appear to have car scales, and the ADM facility (Clinton) where loaded UP trains are unloaded doesnt appear to have one either. Maybe the elevator and processor have some way to measure the weight of the grain durung the loading/unloading process? Or it could be modern scales may not be as noticable as scales of old.
Sometimes product does spill out the bottom of covered hoppers, grain and otherwise. Every now and then you can follow a trail (sort of like the trail of gunpowder in cartoons) between the rails. You can tell when the train stopped because there is a large pile between the rails. You can also see a similar thing when an engine’s sanders have been left on, except the pile stradles the rail.
I believe there was a story in Trains several years ago about a switching crew (in Milwaukee?) that…made use…of some coke from a nearby gas/coking plant. Planning for the usual hard firing after they got started, the fireman stoked up pretty good, only to send it out the pops so fast they panicked and turned a hose on the firebox (with accompanying clouds of steam and smoke), fearing a boiler failure. Of course, it loses something in the summation but it came across as quite a Keystone Cops affair!
Growing up where I did, seeing bits of grain spilled along the tracks was hardly unusual, considering the number of large grain elevators nearby. The spillage was a lot worse at that time when a lot of grain was still being shipped in boxcars.
Other spillage that I’ve noted includes chemical pellets used as raw material for plastics and taconite pellets, especially along the LS&I near Eagle Mills.
Ideally, yes, there would be a scale at each end of the journey. But often eyeballing by an old hand at loading is quite accurate or it is otherwise measured going in. Even at the end, an eyeballer can be quite accurate despite “settling duiring shipment”. Don’t worry, when money…i.e. profit/loss…is concerned, no one is going to allow the other guy to cheat or short change in any way.
From the railroad perspective there are three types of weights.
Shippers load & count - where the shipper provides the weight - The shipper must be certified by a carrier association to provide this weight. The shippers weighing method will be periodically tested to insure it’s accuracy.
Destination weights - Likewise the consignee’s weighing method will be tested to insure it’s accuracy.
Railroad weights - the railroad weighing method is also periodically tested.
I believe there is a case before the STB concerning overloads account mother nature (accumulated Ice & snow on open top hopper commodities). at the present time.
Most loading country elevators have belt scales so seller knows what he is selling. It is very important to them. This is shippers weight. Railroads will not weigh unit trains of grain. Loose cars of grain may go over a hump with a scale, but only if car is overloaded will any attention be paid to the cars.
Rail carriers weigh very few cars enroute. The purpose of weighing was to calculate freight charges. Now most rates are per car. Saves an army of clerks and maintenance costs on lots of scales.
At the unloading end an export elevator may weigh off the cars, but I doubt it. They probably belt weigh going into boats and barges.
Elevator operators plan for and figure in shrink. Loss of moisture from corn is probably the highest shrink in the business.
The point is even a loss of one of three hoppers of a car from a 110 car unit train may well go undetected. The export grain business handles rivers of grain.
If grain is moving to a feedlot, then cars are more often handled as singles and loss of a third of a car would be noticed. Now you get into claims issues. In the usual course of business the railroad is probably going to pay the claim sooner or later.
We haul rice from a rail to truck transfer to a dog food manf. The trucks are weighed and the weights compared with those from the bol for the railcar. They are very fussy about these weights. The seller wants to be paid for the full amount he shipped, and the buyer wants everything he paid for.
Keep in mind most unit grain trains move between elevators…one collects the local grain, and loads out the rail cars, the receiving elevator empties the cars, and either stores the grain for sale at a later date, or loads it out quickly to ship, barge or truck.
The majority of elevators have computerized loading facilities, and most of the time the load out has a scale directly under the cars…it’s not obvious unless you are standing next to it, but it’s there under the rail car, and there is another one just like truck weigh stations on the interstate used for the trucks they load.
Barges are loaded by volume.
The computerized system can load by volume and be within a few pounds of the claimed weight.
Cargills unloading pit/auger has a scale directly ahead of the pit, each car is weighed.
Cargill, down here at least, has a group of guys who walk the car tops prior to unloading, popping the tops and pulling samples from each car…if they notice a car that appears to less full than it should be, its marked as a leaker and the cut out of the train, they weigh it on a separate scale track to confirm.
All loaded grain cars have a security seal on the bottom gates and top hatches, one of those crimp on/lock aluminum strips with the name, date and such of who and where the car was loaded.
Another side of the weighing question. It has to do with train operations and not billing, shipper, nor consignee. Safety and train handling. The easiest to understand is the assignment of horsepower based on anticipated or reported weight…over horsepower, ok. Underhorsepowered, trouble in getting started, maintaining speeds, and braking. The safety factor is in the overloading, topping off. It may be done to get more into the car; iit may be done on the thought it will settle. But, a top heavy load of grain, coal, salt, or other hopper load, could cause the car to sway or rock from side to side causing tipping over if not checked. Check your operating rules and you’ll see a rule of over the top loads that when the sway or rocking occurs the train has to be brought to less than 12 miles per hour. If there is enough horsepower and good track, a faster speed can be achieved and the sway is not apparent,but often at less than 20 mph and bad track will cause the problem. If the weight on the BOL says X and is right on, but the load sways or rocks, the shipper could be in trouble.
Here’s a little video that’s made the rounds on some of the railfan/modeller groups and maybe even one of the Kalmbach forum sites. Since it’s related to this subject, here it is again in case some have not seen it.
Grain Elevator, a Canadian film made about 30 years ago. Shows how grain is handled from the time it comes in, to the time it’s loaded in a 40 foot plain bearing box car. The whole operation seeming to be done by one person. Railroad scenes include assemblying the paper grain door, moving cars (without an engine, I think he had a the basic course at Prof. Zug’s Switching School) and loading the car.