I’m a transition era guy so I don’t pay a whole lot of attention to present day railroading. After a trip to the LHS this afternoon I got stopped at a CSX grade crossing will a long slow coal drag was going by. My first thought was to see how many of the cars had been vandalized with graffiti. To my surprise, I saw very few. Then I noticed one thing that I couldn’t figure out. The cars were all open top hoppers, painted in light gray. One end of each car was painted either red, orange, or yellow. All of these colored ends were at the front of each car until about midway through the train, there was a car that was colored at both ends and then it seemed that every car after that had the colored end at the rear of the car. This couldn’t have happened just randomly so there must be a reason for it. What is the purpose of those colored ends and why are they at the front end of the car in the first half of the train and at the rear on the second half? Is there any significance to the three different colors used?
The painted end denotes the end with a rotary coupler. The first half of the trains would be one set of rotary dump cars for a unit train. The car with painted ends on both ends of the cars has rotary couplers on both ends and is kind of like a conversion car used to connect car sets. This avoid having turn a unit set so the rotary couplers are on the correct end of the train.
jktrains
The colored ends tell you which end of the car is equipped with a rotary coupler, so all cars need to be oriented in the same direction in order to dump in a rotary dumper at the destination. The car with both ends painted would be equipped with a rotary coupler at both ends. That’s why the second half of the train had their colored ends opposite the first half of the train. Normally, all of the cars would be positioned the same direction. You might have seen a cut of cars that were facing the wrong direction when the train was being assembled; the easy solution was to insert a car equipped with rotary couplers at each end as you saw.
Don Z.
(Man! I need to learn how to type faster…)
Thanks for the replies. Is there any significance to the different color paints that were used or do you think they just used what was handy?
Just thought of another question. Do you suppose the coal train going to be split between two destinations and each one needed the rotary couplers on a different end?
The car dumper doesn’t care which end of the car has the rotary coupler, just as long as there is one in the coupler set at each end of the car. If the loco passes through the dumper, the coupler at its rear (fixed) has to be coupled to the rotary-coupler end of the first car. If a pusher is used at the dumper, it, too, would have to couple to a rotary coupler.
Cars are switched out of unit trains for repair or overhaul, and the trains are then filled out with refurbished (or new) cars. By being able to accept rotary couplers at either ‘railroad east’ or ‘railroad west’ through the use of the double rotary coupler car, nothing has to be turned before being added to the consist. The only caveat would be the necessity of replacing a double rotary coupler car with another double rotary car. From run to run, the exact location of the double-rotary car probably varies.
Fun, isn’t it!
Chuck (modeling Central Japan in September, 1964 - with unit coal trains that bottom-dump)
If I may ask: What is a rotary-coupler and how does it work?
Thanks
It has a round shank inside the draft gear box, and can rotate 360 degrees. Prevents shearing off a standard coupler when use in a rotary dumper. Allows cars to be rotated one at a time without having to uncouple.
Brad
Here’s a website of somebody who has modeled a working rotary dumper and appropriate rotary couplers for the bethgons. Looks like I’ll be studying this site myself, I’m impressed with his work.