I just recieved my March issue of Model Railroader and much to my surprise
it has a nice gravel mine subject with a couple of loaded gondola cars.
I have been looking everywhere for these exact cars but have never been able to find them.
Can someone fill me in where I could find these great little gondola’s?
Thanks,
Tom
Well, I guess I just came across what I have been looking for.
| Walthers, Milwaukee Road Difco Dump Car | Part Number: 932-8610 |
|---|
In the later days of steam, the Santa Fe ran this type of car in ballast service. The locomotive used was a 2-8-0 with an unusual modification:
It retained its normal air brake system, including the side-mounted compressor. To provide air for those immense dumping cylinders on a whole train of ballast cars it had two cross-compound compressors mounted on the smokebox front, a la C&O.
I wonder what provision is made for that with modern diesels. Do they add a unit or two purely for air compressor capacity?
Chuck (Modeling Central Japan in September, 1964 - with ballast hoppers that don’t tilt)
holy Jueles Verne!!! them air cylinders are flippin huge! i just read that article last nite too and now i wanna put one in my layout. darn MR and giving my more ideas than i have space for. oh well. i plan on making it more or less like article, but with some sort of conveyor system. i doubt i will be able to find N scale models of '58-'62 front loaders. were the Difco’s even around at that point?
Dave,
That was the exact webite I came across and the light came on as to what I was looking for. Yes, those cylinder are huge! A whole lot of weight to lift up in most cases I would imagine.
I don’t have the March issue, but if what you’re talking about are the cars pictured and referred to above, THEY ARE GONDOLAS, NOT HOPPER CARS.
Mark
These look like the dump cars used by AP Greens’ brick plant or Refractories . They used a Diesel electic 25 ton crane with a clamshell to go out in the yard & load “trips” a trip was 21 tons of whatever material I would order for the various machinery in the grinding dept I worked in. There were a network of tracks out in the yard the crane travelled to get to the various piles of materials. The crane operator would load the car , bring it to the dump bin, the operator would call to see if I was ready & tell me what He was dumping. The car would be dumped, the material would come up a conveyer belt , about 500 feet or so and a plow, locked down on the belt would direct the clay or grog into the proper bin. Greens’ had 3 or 4 of these cars & 2 cranes. They would use only one car at a time with the crane. In the winter months, the clay would sometimes freeze in the car but mostly in the chute under the dump bin going down to the conveyer belt, & 'Ol Charley would have to “go to work”. They were still using this system in the early 80’s when I got laid off. This was quicker than trying to use dump trucks. There was a crane operator and a switchman on each shift, plus the guy at the scalehouse/dumpbin. This was a pretty neat operation to watch.
The compressors on diesels work better. The engine can be wound up a bit to spin the compressor faster, to get things charged up. The cars have extra hoses for the dumping air, hooked up to the main res hose on the engine. It still takes a good amount of time to get a string of air-dumps charged up, though. Many times the train will get lined up ahead of time (night before), and the power will get put on early, so that it is ready to go when the train and section crews are ready (usually early morning, to maximize available daylight).
