would it be feasible for a medium sized maching company to ship iron/ steel shavings by short 2 bay covered hoppers 1-2 cars a week to a steel mill, and receive iron or steel bars by boxcar for machinging?
thanks
mark
No. You wouldn’t ship steel shavings in a covered hopper. They would never flow out of the car. Steel shavings are shipped in gons.
While iron or steel bars could come in a boxcar they would be more likely in a gon.
Ya, I used to live on a branch line with a company called LeJeune Steel at the end. They sold structural steel, and AFAIK always got I-beams and such in long gondola cars.
Steel bars and shapes typically are 60’ long. Hence the 65’ mill gondola. Plate might come that way, too; but it’s usually shorter. In more modern times, a lot of steel has been loaded on flats or bulkhead flats.
And don’t forget shipping the finished product.
A lot depends on what the factory/shop is producing. For example, if it’s appliances, there would probably be coil steel arriving in various coil cars, and appliances leaving in boxcars–a good chance to use those Hi-Tech 40’ hi-cube boxcars.
If your factory is making battleship gun barrels, there’ll be different cars arriving and leaving.
About the only common car you’ll be seeing is the outbound scrap car. It’ll be a 40’ gon in the old days. Now, it might be a retired coal gon. Either way, these cars will be looking most disreputable.
Ed
The RR I work for interchanges with another road that does interplant switching for the old Lukens Steel in Coatsville PA…
We sent out large, thick steel plates and slabs that are in flat cars and bulkhead flats, and ship in gons of scrap.
The steel I see delivered in my area (a couple steel warehouses, and major factory) comes either on bulkhead flats (steel plate, mostly) and coil cars (coils, obviously). All the scrap steel I’ve seen shipped was by way of gons. Scrap semi-precious metals (aluminum, brass, copper, etc.) often goes in road trailers or containers (so it can be locked and sealed to deter theft), usually in cardboard “Gaylords” (pallet sized reinforced boxes, which can be stacked and can hold fairly hefty loads), though it’s reasonable to say these loads could go via boxcar. Some scrap companies in my area even melt aluminum into ingots, which presumably bring better prices.
Brad