OK–a puzzler. Came across this scene yesterday
Now the thing is I saw these hoppers–no trucks–
Which I then found were conjoined by a single(?) platform. The condition of these “cars” is interesting as well-----reconstructed or—??
This curiosum has me puzzled. What I like to know is what these things can still be carrying/holding now and whether these are just made up to this point then used like this, or are they really from surplus and did they get taken apart?
Well, we can read the ‘reporting marks’ onthe nearest one without too much trouble - ‘‘DUPX 36102’’ - which means it is or was a car in privately-owned car fleet - hence the ‘X’, most likely DUPont’s. Someone else might be able to look up the detailed history and ownership of that particular car.
They sure look like plastic pellet hoppers to me. I suspect that’s what they’re being used to store now, and what they were used for in their former life. I’m sure they were built and used as rolling stock for a while - that’s why the reporting marks, which make no sense otherwise; and if someone just wanted to build new tanks, there are easier and better ways and shapes than these.
The plastic pellet business is notorious for using railcars to store their raw materials - apparently, they like to have several different grade and kinds on hand, with one type in each hopper car. John Kneiling used to like to complain about how car productivity was hampered by receivers who liked to use the railcars as free or cheap and portable temporary warehouses. Well, it looks like this plant just took that idea 1 step further - went so far as to purchase some surplus cars and turned them into permanent storage tanks, just like they would be if they were still on trucks and rails. Is this plant near a rail line as well ?
I think there is/was(?) a spur behind the plant but the condition of said area around spur is too mucky to really ascertain this. As far as Binging the area I found that it is pretty vague as to which line it runs to. It could be a matter of both CN and CP for all I know.
The southern end of the spur looks to be either severed or buried under vegetation and the northern end looks about the same—
Barry,
Maybe it was Warren Buffet’s train collection until he finally bought his “layout”[8D].
Definitely an interesting find. Looks like very minimal piping for so much storage capacity, other than the one vertical pipe by 36102 I wonder how the cars are reloaded for storage?
Jay
What I’m wondering is whether this is in the stages of enlarging the facility–such as it is–hence the “legs” laying on their side by the vertical tanks. I tried finding piping anywhere else and found not much else beside that one-----the rest must be stuck somewhere in the middle…?
It doesn’t take much of a pipe to load or unload these kinds of things. Look at the hoses on the truck trailers which do that - a single 4’’ or 6’’ flexible discharge hose is all they use, plus the ‘hard pipe’ from the air compressor. As long as that vertical pipe on the near side of DUPX 36102 has a flexible piece at the top, it could then be moved to any of those hopper cars to reload them.
There’s a plastic film plant about a mile away from my office which uses a single manifold pipe - about 10’’ diameter, I estimate - that can connect into 6 or 8 of the hopper cars that they often have on their single-track spur at once. I’m sure they don’t draw or off-load them all together or simultaneously - but it doesn’t take much. I’ll see if I can find a decent photo of that arrangement, and post it here.
Paul,
I would like to see that.
Another thing, these cars must have been there awhile–No graffiti–and it looks like there is no cover up painting. If placed within the last 10 years, odds are the “artists” would have left their marks.
Jay
DUPX 36102 was removed from UMLER on 12/31/2005. So the cars have been ‘outside’ the railroad world since that time, if not before, having been built in 1965 it basically reached the end of it’s railroad life.
Jay - OK, glad to do that. But, my good ‘overall view’ photos are on my home computer, and I’ll have to bring the camera in one day next week to get a zoomed-in one of the manifold arrangement, esp. before the vegetation leafs out. I looked again at lunchtime, just after the hi-rail track inspector went by EB - it looks to be about 6’’ to 8’’ diam., and they’ve covered a lot of it with a black material, which I believe is insulation.
BaltACD - I wondered about that, and if that was the reason, but those cars don’t look to be that old. Uh-oh . . . . hope nobody trys to sell me for the same reason, 'cause I’m a good ways past that expiration date . . . Thanks for looking that up and sharing that info.
The appearance of rail cars have changed little in the past 40 years or so, much less than how their appearance changed in the 40 years preceeding the 60’s. Wish I could say my appearance hasn’t changed much in the past 40 years.
Paul -
While we all have had some banging around in our lives, I doubt we have had the same level of abuse and neglect that rail cars receive over their lifetimes. Remember - you are never too old to have a happy childhood!
Cool re-use of the cars. Good to see that someone can still get some use out of them.
What is the process that they go through when a car is “decomissioned”—can I use this word for this?–?
Are there facilities that deal in them?
Now, see, a person who has studied freight cars could tell you that they were built in 1971 or earlier.
There are companies that will buy cars approaching the end of their service life. Notable among these is The Andersons. There are a lot of AEX covered hoppers that began life as DUPX cars.
It’s even better than one type of plastic per car here–these cars have distinct compartments for each discharge outlet, so that’s three or four varieties that a given car can hold.
So here you have durable, weatherproof containers with sloping floors and walkways on the roof, easy to load and unload, that just can’t move on their wheels any more. Sounds like a good deal to me!
Hey—thanks for the info guys. Certainly brought this little one up to par on this—[bow]
Carl, I was hoping you’d join in here, for exactly that reason.
What’s the pre-1971 clue ? The ladder rails on the right ends, near side, where the rungs have been removed from about mid-ladder to the top ? Which tells us that these cars were built before the roofwalks and end ladders up to them were banned/ discontinued - was that 1971 ?
As to The Andersons/ AEX - this is the first I’d heard of them. See: http://www.andersonsinc.com/wps/portal/corp and http://www.ande-rail.com/
Thanks for the additional info on the compartments - I didn’t pick that up, either.
And I agree with your summary, too. Maybe you should become a salesman for used railcars, Carl . . . [:-,]
No, thanks, Paul–never have had the stomach for sales.
The clue was the stiffener running the length of the body near the top of the sides. That was dropped sometime during 1971.
But nonetheless, I looked up DUPX 36102. Built 6/65, one of 130 cars in the order. It had three outlets, hence three compartments.
Carl - OK, I can understand that. Thanks for enlightening us with that clue - it’s not one that I would have expected at all - and the additional data on the subject car, too.
Here’s a general view of the Film-Tech plant’s single-track spur, looking southwest, taken while the NS local was in the midst of re-shuffling the cars one day last year with a ‘handle’ of other cars. The gons and Geep are on the eastward main track and are the trailing end of the train, plus the then-idling ‘push’ in its ‘push-pull’ power arrangement, which I’ve mentioned here a few times before.
The plastic pellet cars are spotted from the tan-colored building in the background towards the camera. The unloading manifold is about 1 to 2 ft. above ground level, on the near or right side of the spur, and basically behind that thin strip of trees that’s above and to the right of the loco. I can get decent shots of it from the public street and the grass strip on the right, before the low vegetation leafs out too much. So this should give you an idea of the spatial relationships of the images that you’ll hopefully be seeing one day next week.
The main is NS’ Reading Line, nee East Pennsylvania RR, next maybe Philadelphia & Reading, then Reading, then ConRail. MP 32 is just this side of the grade crossing of 31st St. SW in Allentown in the far distance, and the MP’s increase towards the camera. The junction with the Perkiomen Line is about 3/4 mile in the distance, and the Allentown Yard is about 4 miles behind the camera; the I-78/ PA Rt. 309 overpass is about 200 yards behind the camera.
ACF Center Flow Covered Hoppers had a noticable design change in 1972.
The 1965-1972 ACF Center Flow Hoppers have a noticable, triangular shaped, stiffening chord horizontally across the side.
Andrew
Old railroad car don’t die; sometimes they find new uses!
Out here in Kansas you can see as one motors about old boxcars, which farmers seem to trasure for out buildings to store virtually anything from hay, to bagged feed, to things that need locking up.There are wooden cars in various stages of degredation to ones that still have the reporting marks visible. over in the SE kansas area the Katy seemed to be a source of many wooden cars,and not just a few of steel cars.
Old domed tank cars seem to survive as storage of liquids, many at little roadside Hwy. Dept. depots as liquid asphalt storage. Around plants/manufacturers for cheap, fast to locate storage tanks. Some even wind up as culverts under roads ( cut the ends out, and there is one big culvert;bedded in with rocks, and it is heavy enough to not want to float out in high water.
Flat cars make pretty serviceable bridges for county roads and occassional use by private land owners as well.
Fire departments value these old cars as training aids as well, and there was a recent mention on UPRR’s web site of them giving retired locomotives the the S A (TX) FD for a training aid.
Covered hopper that have outlived their railroad lives can wind up as salt storage facilities, as well. Put 'em up on pilings and they are ready made storage tanks for plastic pellets ( as precviously mentiond). If you have ever priced a dry flowable products storage silo ( you can readily visualize an available surplus hopper as a viable alternative to a factory built or site assembled silo, in particular if your amounts of materials being stored are LCL or close).
And when talking of surplus cars, one can absolutely the many uses and places where old cabooses have wound up after their useful lives being recycled back into new lives.[bow]
Buildings, signals and oth
Built Jan 1965, retired Dec 2005. Always had the same init and number.