What kind of track arangement are found around rotary dumpers and how are they operated? I’m installing one on my O-scale shelf layout and want a realistic track arangement.
I have only seen one operation and it was eons ago. Best of my memory serves me, it was a gravity type operation, retarders were operated by the dump operator and he stoped the two car rotqary dump cars, emteyed them, then released the retartders and waited for the next pair of cars, when the cars were unloaded they would roll into a siding and wait for the next locomotives.
This was on a dead ended yard, the enginges woudl uncouple and run around the dumper on another run around track to swich in front of an emteyed set of cars. Seems to me it was every half hour a train would meet, perhaps sooner, was an efficient operation (other then one faital head on wreck) using CTC hauling rock for the Oroville dam.
They have a great vidio at the observation area but its been some time since I seen it.
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I can look out the window here in my apartment at CSX/NSs coal dock here in Ashtabula, Ohio, and our rotary dumper is…totally hidden from view in a aluminum sided shed. I believe this is too protect it from the truly EVIL lake Erie winter weather, so as far as modeling your rotary dumper, remember to keep the weather on the layout in mind.
One loco pushes the train ahead, one car at a time, into the dump shed, where a huge conveyor (as soon as i figure out how to post pics or HTML i will, just do a search for Ashtabula coal dock and look for pics to see how awesome this structure is) carries the coal to the other side of the river, where NS stockpiles it with huge loaders and a huge trackhoe.
When the car is emptied, it is allowed to roll down a small hump, into a waiting loco, who also pulls ahead one car length and then waits for the next car to come along.
Seems like it takes 45 to 75 seconds per car, sometimes a bit longer, the loco catching the empties will then pull around on a huge loop and park the train of empties parallel to the track the loco pushing the loaded cars was just on. The loco that was just pushing is almost always a larger unit (or pair) like Dash 9s or larger EMDs, but the one pulling the string of empties is likely to be just about any engine that they can find.
As a sidenote, there is not always a loco pushing the string of cars into the shed…sometimes they are moved by what i assume is some kind of car puller, i have NO idea what it looks like, but it must be impressive…50 gons full of coal wont move themselves!
From the mountain of coal stockpiled on the west side of the river, they will load large iron boats with coal, bound for Canada or wherever it is that they go. Occasionally, the hoppers and gons will be loaded with ore for their return back to the Youngstown/Pittsburg area…always amazes me, that those 2 little humps of ore in the bottom of a modern hopper or gon are 100 tons of ore, how heavy that stuff really is!
I r
Chad…
love the icon!
I grew up watching the PBNE rotary dumper at the bethlehem steel yard from my grandparents window!!!
At the bethlehem plant, the rotary dumper was just west of the current Heavy Forge Operations on a tier just below the forge buildings and just above the ore yard. The track ran as a loop coming from the Florenece yard, past the reading’s Iron Hill yard, under Rt 412, to the dumper, and back around to the river side behind the heavy forge buildings to florence yard. There was a runaround track, but i can’t remember seeing a loco using it, it usually had cars stored there. The dumper lead was off of the main PBNE trackage to their shops under the minis trail bridge.
Hope this helps.
MRinkunas, do you remember what locos operated around the dumper. Was it main line 6-axles or PB&NE switchers?
the PBNE switchers used that area…
though for modeling purposes, the entire PBNE was laid with the heaviest rail available due to the heavy weight involved in the process of making steel. So heavy road engines could use them if need be. Got this info straight from the head of the PBNE, now Lehigh Valley Rail Managment on a recent tour.
Several of their older engines are stored in their Iron Hill yard. I believe they primarly used SW series switchers.
~Mike
On a coal dock for dumping intoa waiting ship the cars would be shoved ahead of a “donkey” which was on narrow guage track below the level of the stnd guage track. The yard engine would pull the cut back and the donkey would be pulled up by cables and shove the car up to the dumper. The car would be spotted into the dumper and it would either be rotated and dumped or the track would be lifted, car and all, and dumped. When the car was dumped it would be released and roll by gravity down a dip, across a spring switch and would coast up a short kick-back track. Gravity would then reverse its direction, it would roll down a track behind the dumper into an empty yard. I built a rotory car dump that would clamp the cars while being dumped but I coulld never get the kick-back track to work like it should so I wound up shoving the cars through one car at a time and pulling the cut back through through the dumper when they were all dumped. After much head scrathing I gave up on even trying to rig a donkey to run between the standard guage rails.
Jimrice4449
I seem to recall that those shiploader rotary dumpers were built like roller coasters. Not even a Y6 could have handled more than two loads up the grade, and would have used up two domes full of sand trying!
Of course, my memories are half a century out of date. I have no idea what the east end of the former N&W looks like today.
Chuck (whose coal is still unloaded the old fashioned way - with shovels, out of drop-side gons)
I, too, didn’t bother with the kickback due to lack of space and lack of time to scratchbuild the thing. What I did was put a 5% grade on the exit track, let the cars roll down this onto an outbound bypass track (sometimes needing a little assistance from the 0-5-0, LOL), then have the coal cars picked up by the same switcher that shoved them up onto the dumper.
Here are a few links to some photos of a dumper operating sequence on my layout:
http://ironbelt.net/mill_only/slide213.html
http://ironbelt.net/mill_only/slide214.html
How would the coal be taken from the dumper to the coke works. Was there a long conveyor or was coal reloaded into hoppers, or something else? Also did the loco go through the dumper?
As I Stated in the other thread, I don’t belive locos are supposed to go through the dumper, I’m not sure becuase of clearence issues or weight issues.
Both, the weight and the clearance.
I worked for the FMC Materials Handling Systems Division, Colmar PA (on the RDG Doylestown branch), during my college summers. My father worked there 36 years. FMC bought Link-Belt in the 60s. Link-Belt built RR car dumpers and conveyor systems. I remember a drawing of the two dumper installation for the C&O at Newport News VA. The dumpers were parallel to each other and used a kick-back exit. I believe they used “mules” there.
Bethlehem and Link-Belt were very close, geographically, and business-wise. Would venture to guess that the dumpers in Bethlehem were by L-B. There was an article in a prototype magazine maybe 20 years ago about the L-B dumper at a Pa. Power & Light plant. I remember my father took trips to Atlantic City Electric to diagnose problems with their dumper.
How would you build retarders to slow down free rolling cars on a model. On the temporary track I’m using 10 guage wire insulation but it is hard to control is there a way to make adjustable retarders?
The late Ed Ravenscroft developed a retarder system that slowed the cars by blowing low-pressure air upgrade against the underside of the car. The airflow was timed, so a fast-moving car got maximum retardation and a slow-moving car got little or none.
Ed was very active in the NMRA, and part of the drive behind “NMRA standardized” car weights was to make all freight cars compatable with his hump yard retarders. I saw the result of maximum blast under a lightweight car - lifted it right off the tracks.
Chuck
There were TWO rotary dumpers at the Steel in Bethlehem.
One was near the Minsi Trail bridge for dumping ore. The PBNE would load the track (tracks 360 to 374) up with loads and uncouple. The Bethlehem Steel “mule” (electric pusher loco) would do the pushing through the “barrel”.
These empties would be ridden down to the “middle yard” by the B.S. ore guys.
The other rotary was up in the Coke Works. Loads of coal would arrive and be shuttled up to the “coal field” tracks by the PBNE. Then a radio controlled Bethlehem Steel SW1 would be used to push the cars through the barrel. One 100 ton car at a time…none of these cars had rotary couplers.
I know…too much info…its good i shortened it…
Jim
This is the rotary dump at Indianapolis Power and Light in downton Indianapolis, Indiana. To see it better close the “Welcome” menu on the left, turn the pic to face south, and you can drag the pic around to study it better. It takes a minute to load.
Chad,
Heres a video that shows how the whole operation ,from start to finnish.Scroll down this link page till you see {coal loading operations 6/17 }. Hope this helps.
http://www.boatnerd.com/news/newsthumbs/newsthumbs_263.htm
Patrick
Wow, I’ve never seen a setup like that! Going up!
Thanks for bringing this thread back. Jim, that wasn’t to much information it was a good answer. Patrick, I have never seen anything like that.
At US Steel’s Fairless Works ¶ we used multiple conveyors to get the coal from the dumper to the top of the coke oven batteries. The motive power never went through the dumper.