Are the covered- hoppers that are used to haul bulk commodities (plastics. dry goods, etc.) a fairly recent development?
What was used to transport these types of commodities before the advent of these cars?
Are the grain trains a "unit " train such as the coal trains?
Are they loaded like the coal trains? Or because of nature of the product and health risks are there special techniques for loading?
In the old days boxcars were used for these types of bulk goods. They had boards that were placed across the doors and more boards were added as the load became higher. The covered hoppers were a huge improvement. I know there are specific requirements for loading,transporting(i.e. a car designated for food) or unloading any product for human consumption. There can be unit “grain” trains. Yes and No. The coal is mostly loaded by a “flood” loader as the cars are open top. Covered hoppers are loaded thru roof hatches and this takes a little longer. [2c] As always ENJOY
Actually, grain is probably the only bulk commodity that was shipped in box cars before the use of covered hoppers became widespread.
The first covered hopper cars were very literally just that–roofs applied to standard hopper cars, used initially for the transportation of cement. (Cement was previously transported in special LCL containers.) The first conversions were in the late 1920s or early 1930s. Purpose-built covered hoppers with a low capacity (around 1300 cubic feet) were built in the mid-1930s.
From their introduction in 1937 until the early 1950s, the most common size of covered hopper cars had a capacity of 1958 cubic feet. At least three manufacturers offered cars of this size. They were still used primarily for cement, but other commodities, such as sand, were also carried in these. (Sand was often carried in open-top cars prior to its transport in covered hoppers–I recall seeing loads of sand shipped out in gons–blowing away as the train moved, and subject to whatever weather came its way.) Some chemicals also began to be transported in covered hoppers–C&O modified some cars to transport calcium carbide (very volatile when wet!) in about 1956.
In about 1954, General American began building its Airslide covered hoppers, which were very useful for sanitary unloading of bulk products such as flour, sugar, starch, and carbon black. Most of the time before this, bulk shipments of this stuff didn’t exist–the food products were bagged and shipped in box cars. Grain (and things like malt) began to be transported in larger covered hoppers, instead of box cars, in the late 1950s.
In the 1960s, covered hoppers really began to diversify, with various sizes, loading designs, and unloading devices and processes suitable to nearly every type of bulk commodity. These cars were fairly standard throughout the late 1960s and the 1970s and early 80s. In the 1990s, with the advent of 286K gross rail loads, covered hoppers took a jump in size a
The biggest change in flour shipping took place when the airslide car was invented in the 1950’s. For the first time, flr could be loaded in bulk transportated direct to baking compaines. This was faster, cleaner and lower on labor costs for the mills (1 or 2 pepole to load a bulk car compared to 4 on a boxcar)… The airslide car is slowly being phased out by the newer, larger, easier to clean pressure differential cars. I worked for Cargill Flr Milling 1981-1998 and spent gobs of hrs cleaning & loading the small & large airslide cars from ASTF, GACX, UP, MP, & CXST. A small car could be loaded in 3 hrs, large car 5 hrs and a pd car an avg of 6:20. As far as i know, the mill only now loads pd cars and very little airslide loadings. Interviews w/ former employees state bulk loading @ the mill began in 1957 or 1958. This mill began operating in 1918. Very slowly i am researching data to write a book on the history of the mill and hope to have it done within 5 yrs and hope to have photos of various railcars used at the mill plus old, old inside & outside views of the building. Call it a labor of love.
Anything that had to be kept dry was shipped in box cars before covered hoppers. Before covered hoppers all bulk goods were shipped in boxcars. The difference was that these bulk goods could not be shipped in bulk. I have seen carbon black cars that more closely resemble boxcars but with roof hatches and bottom exits. Early efforts included modified boxcars where bottom dump cars were not practical.[2c] As always ENJOY
To add to all of this…
If you ever get the chance to watch them unload a unit grain train…well, you will look at your bread and breakfast cereal a whole lot differently!
The grain drops out the bottom of the hoppers into a grate between the rails falling into a pit…along with the dirt and “stuff” the wind manages to blow in and what ever crud falls off the outside of the car.
And they have big vibrator pads that attach to brackets on the discharge chutes under the car…they manage to create quite a rain of rust and paint if the car is one of the older ones…
Most elevators empty their pit with an Archimedes screw that delivers the grain into a routing system, then into which ever silo or elevator chosen.
Trust me, what is shipped if far from food quality.
Every baker, processor and user goes through great pains to clean the grain before it ever gets close to human consumption grade.
They still use boxcars for some grain…dried corn for animal feed…and a lot of bulk stuff.
We handle quite a few boxes of dried peas…today we had lentil…real tiny, it looks like seeds, almost a mini dried pea!
The doors are blocked off with a heavy cardboard sheet and a plastic film sheet barrier, leaving about two feet from the top of the door opening clear…they stick a chute or hose in and use air and or gravity feed to fill them…and a “spreader” works the peas/corn/commodity into the corners.
The spreader is a guy inside the car with a big squeegee looking tool, like a rake.
He gets out through the top of the door opening.
The unloading is simple…they open the doors on one side, run a vee shaped conveyor up to the door, and slice a hole in the cardboard, and away it goes.
Ed
Yes, carbon-black cars look pretty boxy, but they’re still covered hoppers. They actually fill up almost like box cars, filling out most of their volume. When it comes time to unload them, bags are inflated to make the powder slide down into the hoppers. I haven’t heard of this method being employed for any other commodity, ecept fro fumed silica. Must be something about their properties.
If you have ever seen how flour is made in a mill and some of the things which take place, you would not eat another loaf of bread.
Anybody know how many parts per thousand of insect debris the FDA allows?
Ed[:D]
Ed-I worked in a bakery in high school. I don’t think the railroads added as much interesting “stuff” to your finished product as we did.[xx(] As an incentive to do a good job, you could eat anything in the place, as long as you didn’t waste anything. We all ate the chocolate eclairs-they were shipped in frozen. We hoped whoever made them did a better job than our crew. To this day, I can still pass on a donut.[;)]
My first job was with KFC…use your imagination…amazing the things you find in a deep fryer full of yummy boiling hot lard!
Ed[:p]
Koalin is another commodity that comes to mind. Do not remenber much about it except it is a very fine powdered clay. Seems to me things that had a tendancy to clump from humidity work best when shipped in this type car. They could best be decribed as a custom or modified boxcar. Though they load and unload very much like covered hoppers they are constructed from a boxcar template. They also have special hatchs top and bottom to prevent any humidity from contaminating the product. [2c] As always ENJOY
I have worked in chemical plants for most of my career and we used to get a lot of the bulk solid chemicals loose in boxcars. It was a dirty, dusty, awful job shoveling out the boxcars and the duty usually went to the new hires. Things I can remember that we got loose in boxcars include, sodium chloride, calcium chloride, sulfer, slaked lime, ammonium phosphate, soda ash, and diatomaceous earth. I am sure that there were others that I do not remember. Starting in the early 1960s most of these products started being delivered in bags, but stacked on the boxcar floor. By the early 1970s everything was in bags and on pallets.