My late 70’s layout has a concrete plant. Inbound products include rock, sand, cement and fly ash. I would like to add an outbound product. The plant makes concrete blocks, bricks and other finished concrete products. Would those products be shipped by rail in late 70’s? Flatcar? Boxcar?
My impression is that plants that produce concrete blocks and bricks and similar things don’t ship by rail, because their customers are far too close.
If ya wanna ignore that irritating idea, the car at the top of my list would be a bulkhead flat–easily loaded by fork lift. And the bulkheads help head off longitudinal load shift. Which, of course, is why they became popular.
Now, if your plant made some sort of sooper-special concrete product that hardly anyone else could make, then rail shipment starts becoming more likely.
Yeah, I’d go with bulkheads. And pallets, of course. And lots of banding. Lots.
Ed
Back in the late 60’s I used to see 40’ boxcars with pallets of bricks. They were the kiln fired clay type.
The B&O delivered bricks in boxcars to a dealer in Washington Pa. at least into the late 70’s. I think I remember Southern Ry. boxcars being used but I not sure of that.
Mark Vinski
I saw an MP flat with low (4 ft.?) bulkheads and sections of what looked like fence panels in the stake pockets hauling palletized brick in Gulfport MS during 1974. Also, two general service flats loaded with concrete culvert sections. They looked be about three feet in diameter by ten feet long on the C&O in Hampton VA, 1969.
There’s a masonry supply business in Northern Virginia that still gets bricks and blocks in 50 foot boxcars.
Iowa Interstate RR has a tariff for bricks from De Soto IA to various interchange points. Tarrifs for 50 and 60 foot box cars. The brick yard is actually near Redfield IA and trucked to the De Soto loading point.
Jeff
There is a brick and tile works in D’Hanis, TX, on the SP’s Sunset Route. The spur was lifted in the eary '80s but it was not uncommon to find 3 or 4 SP double door, exterior post boxcars being loaded in there. d’Hanis Brick Works is registered in the Historic American Engineering Record. Since the town of d’Hanis consists mainly of two very short blocks of businesses facing the track and U.S. Hwy 90, it could be the inspiration for a model. Check it out on Google Earth, street view.
The problem with a concrete block plant is that all the ingredients can come from someplace else, which means it can be set up anywhere, and for the most part the end products are not unique. That means there is no need to ship out the product great distances and customers can source the products locally.
Real clay brick on the other hand is dependent on the color and qualities of the clay and so therefore can be unique. For example I went to Drexel University and most of their purpose built buildings are sheathed with a particular “orange” brick. Its a unique color. Plus not all areas have clays that are suitable for making bricks. Therefore bricks have more opportunities to be shipped.
The concrete products I have seen shipped is pipe, catch basins and prestressed structural components (beams, pilings, floor panels, bridge decks, etc). Products that have unique properties and special value added qualities.
When I worked on the Chessie(C&O) we would setout a boxcar of concrete blocks on the Maysville(Ky) House track once a month–yes that was what the team track was called because it was located on the former freight house track…
Yes a brick yard in the next county from me does ship bricks by Norfolk Southern.
Thanks all. All I needed was a “plausable” outbound load. The plant I have in mind makes a variety of concrete products…not just blocks and bricks. I think I will ship in boxcars rather than open flats so I don’t need to display the actual products.
Bricks are different than blocks.
Bricks are made from clay and they are “cooked” in kilns.
Blocks (concrete) are cast from, yes, concrete. The process does not involve heating the concrete.
So a concrete plant wouldn’t make bricks.
Because making bricks is more complex than making blocks, it is more expensive to build the plant. So they will be farther apart. Which can explain why bricks are more likely to be shipped by rail than concrete blocks. Also, as noted by a poster above, there are all kinds of bricks. And someone might just HAVE to have bricks from a long way away. Concrete blocks ain’t that special.
Ed
Just another thought. There are transload areas for building products. Products get shipped by rail to these sites, where trucks then come and pick up the assigned load for various customers in the surrounding area. It works well when no one customer is large enough to get products by rail, sort of a team track area specifically designated for building materials.
One of these transload areas could be a destination for your brick/block plant.
Perhaps not, but concrete bricks aren’t all that uncommon.
Wayne
Concrete pipe, like for sewers, could be shipped by rail. Usually on bulkhead flats. Models of such are available via the standard websites.
I did not know that. I’ve never seen them used, but here in California, masonry construction is not terribly popular.
Ed
My local Lowes and Home Depot both sell concrete bricks in various colors. Used for landscaping and patios. Also sell concrete paving stones and stepping stones in various shapes.
Ed,I thought that too every just about every time we set that boxcar of concrete blocks off at Maysville.
After the sales of tobacco at the Maysville tobacco warehouses we would pick up several boxcar loads of dried tobacco.
Concrete bricks are actually called cinder blocks. They are very common in construction because they are hollow and are reinforced with rebar and cement. They are usually shipped by trucks but they might be inside of boxcars.
Anyway large concrete sewer pipe and concrete railroad ties are the most common concrete items that are shipped by rail.