The year 1978 location wood box manufactuer/ wood flour producer.
Situation: box company is located at one end of property and produces a lot of saw dust which is air blown thru over head pipes across property to the wood flour production. One day part of the overhead system collapses. Including main blower destroying the blower
The company has some surplus leased boxcars would it be cheaper to load 1 or 2 boxcars a day with sawdust and when the train is there switching have the crew move the loaded cars of sawdust over to the wood flour producer then it would to replace the overhead system?
Cost of replacement blower and rebuilding (preferably somewhat sturdier construction!)
How much the rail company charges for respotting.
PITA factor of loading and unloading box cars.
Cost-benefit on surplus boxcars used, VS leased for other service.
Product loss vs direct movement by blower.
Etc., etc., etc…
If I was managing the place, just the PITA factor [and extra wages for the loader(s) and unloader(s)] would have me ordering a blower and calling a properly qualified contractor before the clang and bang of the collapse had died away.
No…The number of man hours needed to load/unload boxcars-this includes waiting for the local to switch cars and there lays another problem… The local doesn’t run at the same time and therefore not dependable and what happens should be crew hit the law? Production may be stopped due to lack of product needed for assembly.
Next question would the railroad even agree to switch those cars? More then likely not-to costly when compared to the switching charges.
It would be best to repair the blower then buying a small industrial switcher or track speeder to do the job…