Hey all!
I model the 70s, and would love to add a Northampton and Bath cement boxcar or two into my Cement car fleet on my switching layout, but I was wondering if there was any special or different equipment that would be on site dedicated to loading bagged cement at a cement plant, or if I could just run them with my covered hoppers?
Thanks for the help! Glad to have the forums back!
I can’t answer the question from direct experience, but my working knowledge of these systems would say that covered hoppers are loaded by a pipe or shute, while boxcars would be loaded by a forklift carrying the bagged cement from a dock…
I would think the cement plant would want two dedicated tracks, one for shoving the hoppers under the shute, and one for placing boxcars along the dock…not wanting to have both on the same track as to have one car waiting for the different car to be loaded.
I would built the plant to have with two separate spurs serving two separate loading areas… And since its cement, I would cover both loading areas so the cement doesn’t get wet…yikes.
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Hello All,
Bagged cement would probably be loaded onto pallets and the pallets loaded onto boxcars with forklifts or pallet jacks.
Covered hoppers would be used for bulk cement and not bagged.
Hope this helps.
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When I was younger I worked in a lumberyard unloading boxcars with a forklift. The old-timers there used to tell me stories of unloading bags of cement, all by hand. Car after car, day after day. Most of their lumber came hand stacked in boxcars as well, and in random lengths! Different times for sure.
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Thanks for your help y’all, I might just be able to justify it as a rare event for the plant to be sending out bagged cement via boxcar. My track arrangement already has 2 tracks at the plant, currently used as an off-spot track and a loading/unloading track under a shelter, if I build a small loading dock on the opposite side of the off-spot track occasionally in the ops 1 or 2 boxcars can be spotted instead of 2 new covered hoppers, which will be loaded and removed for the next switch job, and the bulk shipments will be “on hold” until a new pair of covered hoppers arrive in the next session. Once I get the decals and start prepping the cars and the loading dock, I’ll share here on the forums. Thanks again!
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Fifty years ago I worked in a steel mill with a guy the local lumberyard called to unload box cars of lumber. either it was just thrown inor it jumbled up and got twisted in shipment. It required one man to climb into the space at the top which was less then two feet and finagle pieces out. It was hot hard work and he got really good money for it. Several of his co-workers were paid well to help and most only did it once.
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Concrete is made from portions of sand, aggregate and Portland cement. If cement was loaded into hopper cars it was probably the sand and aggregate mix and the Portland Cement added at the final destination.
This link may explain.
Apparently, the cement was pumped into and out of the box car