How closely is the loading of hoppers and gondolas monitored?
Is every single hopper and gondola weighed after loading?
What has happened after a gondola or hopper is overloaded?
Andrew Falconer
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Not as closely as it used to be monitored. Many of the scales that used to be present at every yard and terminal have been retired and removed.
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No, many cars are not weighed.
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If it is discovered to be an overload, the excess is removed before the car is moved … usually.
To elaborate, the consignor and the consignee are usually not one and the same company, so it’s smart for the consigner to weigh his cars himself to avoid giving his customer more than what the customer bargained for. That’s why most coal mines and other bulk shippers weigh every car as they’re loading and deliver to the customer (and the railroad) a loaded weight for every car released to the railroad for movement – the cars are not reweighed by the railroad, as a rule, and the tariff or contract usually specifies “mine weights apply.” Where overloads typically occur is when a commodity is not sold by weight and weights of the commodity can vary wildly, e.g., dimensional lumber where weight varies considerably with moisture content.
Coal loading machinery, incidentally, uses either batch weighing or weigh-in-motion scales. In each case the loadout operator punches in the car number and reporting marks as it slowly approaches the chute and the loadout computer compares this against a look-up table to find the car’s light weight and maximum loaded weight. The difference is the amount of coal that can be placed in the car to achieve maximum efficiency and not have an overload. Batch weighing uses chutes, gates, and hoppers to prepare a batch of coal to the appropriate capacity of each car, and that batch is dumped into the right car. Weigh-in-motion simply counts down how much more coal the loadout operator can put in the car and its up to him to maneuver the chute and operate the gate to fill the car to capacity, not spill any coal, and load the car evenly end-to-end. Overloads are more common with the latter than the former, and if they’re way off – say 300-50
Proper loading of a railcar is the responsibility of the shipper originally loading the car. Since the advent of reliable in-motion scales (Kamen Sciences et. al.), the number of scales has diminished and the old mechanical scales still around now are doomed to collect rust as they fall out of use and cost extra $$$ to remain certified by AAR and the state. Scales now tend to congregate at choke points and major yards. Major shippers (like coal mines) have their own scales located just past the tipple to catch the over-heavies. If the railroad catches an overloaded car, you are paying a premium tarriff for the miles already run by the overloaded car and the car is held at the nearest yard team track or cleaning track to reduce the load at shipper expense. From what I still see, the Agri-dummies still overload grain cars far too often, causing all kinds of angst, hate & discontent. Improperly loaded cars pose a bigger problem now than overloaded cars. (Like a scrap metal gon moving with all the weight on one end or side)…LC, UniHead and the others probably all have stories.
It is my understanding overloaded rolling stock suffered damage to the bearings which must be replaced along with any other rolling damage sustained. The bill is sent to the shipper.
Once in a while a caveman loads the car to the max seeing all that space for a very dense and heavy product. That happens just once usually.
If a shipper continues to overload, they risk losing the account.
Dont get me started on the trucking side… grrr…
Don’t hump leads have weight in motion scales built into them to calculate the retarder force needed to insure a safe joint speed of the cars after they are cut off? Can that weight be tagged for overloaded cars going over the hump for switching?
Our hump leads don’t have a scale–with the weights printed on the hump lists (reasonably accurate, in my experience) and a little insight into how heavy cars sound and feel as they go by me, I make sure they get properly retarded without too much difficulty.
We’ve had a few cars that show up with an “overload” notation on the list–we send them toward the bad-order tracks where they are switched out for proper attention.
There used to be a track scale at Proviso, but that’s been gone for decades. I don’t know if we still have one at our North Avenue Yard in the city, but if we do that’s the only one in the area on the UP.
I see a lot of scrap metal gons in the Brigham City yard. Many of them sag and have bowed sides - but I don’t know if that is from overloading or improper loading.
Back in CNW days, I remember one gon that was sagging pretty severly under a load of scrap. Saw it again a day or so later while on a trip to Des Plaines–the sag had apparently become a break, and the car was going nowhere. It managed to make it onto our joint line with MILW before failing.
Again, this may not have been overloading–perhaps abusive loading or just a worn-out old gondola.
our hump scale weighs here in Galesburg and we usually catch quite a few heavies. Hulcher will come reload unload or whatever needs done.We get a lot of cement cars grain and scrap cars.
We had a few coal loads ( that were BO adn repaired here and once ran over the hump were found to be way overweight) but those are very rare.
Scrap is indeed a glaring exception to the rule that a consignor won’t overload a bulk commodity on purpose and risk giving away commodity. Because scrap is graded and weighed by the purchaser and is not an agreed-upon quality and quantity prior to shipment (because scrap is non-uniform and highly variable), the scrap yard that can ship 110 tons for the price of 100 is way ahead in a very low-margin, penny-pinching business.
S. Hadid
Thank You, S. Hadid., those are facts that I have never found in such a clear and detailed manner. Now I can see the missing details of coal loading.
Andrew Falconer
[quote user=“1435mm”]
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Not as closely as it used to be monitored. Many of the scales that used to be present at every yard and terminal have been retired and removed.
-
No, many cars are not weighed.
-
If it is discovered to be an overload, the excess is removed before the car is moved … usually.
To elaborate, the consignor and the consignee are usually not one and the same company, so it’s smart for the consigner to weigh his cars himself to avoid giving his customer more than what the customer bargained for. That’s why most coal mines and other bulk shippers weigh every car as they’re loading and deliver to the customer (and the railroad) a loaded weight for every car released to the railroad for movement – the cars are not reweighed by the railroad, as a rule, and the tariff or contract usually specifies “mine weights apply.” Where overloads typically occur is when a commodity is not sold by weight and weights of the commodity can vary wildly, e.g., dimensional lumber where weight varies considerably with moisture content.
Coal loading machinery, incidentally, uses either batch weighing or weigh-in-motion scales. In each case the loadout operator punches in the car number and reporting marks as it slowly approaches the chute and the loadout computer compares this against a look-up table to find the car’s light weight and maximum loaded weight. The difference is the amount of coal that can be placed in the car to achieve maximum efficiency and not have an overload. Batch weighing uses chutes, gates, and hoppers to prepare a batch of coal to the appropriate capacity of each car, and that batch is dumped into the right car. Weigh-in-motion simply counts down how much more coal the loadout operator can put in the car and its up to him to maneuver the chute and operate the gate to fill the car to capacity, not spill any coal, and load the car evenly end-to-end. Overloads are more common with the latter than the former, and if they’
Exactly.
Back in the 80’s the SP had a bad wreck in Barstow when a misweighted train rain away. They were bauxite cars coming from the Mojave dessert to LA. It piled up and took out a number of housed and some residents were killed. It was manifested at 60% of its true weight and the dynamics could not hold it. They rounded the 40 mph curve at 90 mph.
That is what I was wondering about. How many times has a unit train not been weighed accurately and been pulled by inadequate motive power
Would that have been a business decision by a manager to put extra amounts of the bauxite into the hoppers or gondolas or a technical error?
Andrew
The train was carrying trona (a material used to make fertilizer) that had been mined and loaded onto the freight cars for shipment to a buyer. The buyer had purchased 6,900 tons of trona; thus the mining company contracted for 69 100-ton hopper cars. When the mining company turned in the final contract to the clerk for the bill of lading, they had not filled in any weight, assuming that the railroad would know that they had filled the 100-ton cars to capacity. The clerk filled in the bill of lading as 60 tons per hopper car, going by a visual comparison of 100 tons of coal. As a result, the train was listed as significantly lighter than its actual weight.
Also 2 of the locos did not have working dynamic brakes. The engineer did not have all the information.
I’ve had more then one overloaded scrap car, rain scrap near me. It’s a very strange sight, to see a wave scrap washing over the end of a car.
Nick
Also, the wreck did not happen in Barstow. It was in, or just north of, San Bernardino.
A good summary though trona (raw soda ash) is actually mostly used to make glass, not fertilizer. (I know, everyone’s a critic, but it is a good summary!)