Would open hoppers be right to carry stone & gravel? Does anybody know of any
railroads that carry stone & gravel? Is a rock quary where they chop the rock into
big blocks, and is stone & gravel company where they chop the big rocks into
smaller rock? Sorry I’m asking too much questions, it’s just that I’m not sure of that.
Hey Jailbreaker,
Just down th road is Texas Crushed Stone in business for 75+ years. They quary limestone rock then load it into rock crushers to make a gravel size product. It is shipped by gondolas, open top hoppers and trucks. They ship somewhere around 80 cars a day on the Georgetown RR (GRR). GRR is totally owned by Texas Crushe Stone and is a 10+ mile shortline. The crushed stone is used primarily for road construction and a pads for buildings.
Abt 100 miles away is Texas Granite Corp. where pink granite is quarried. It is finished on site as well as shipped rough. Originally it was all shipped on flat cars and in gondolas, now much of it is by truck. Been in business since 1880. Currently serviced bu Austin and Northwestern RR.
Hope this helps. John T.
My definition of a quarry is any place stone comes out of the ground regardless of what the finished product will be. In Hartwell and Elberton, GA, they have a number of stone cutting outfits that make everything from stone countertops to grave stones to you-name-it. Over in Tate, GA they mine marble. Same deal there. Most all RR’s carry gravel, even if (for some) for their own ballasting purposes. Gravel usually goes in open hoppers, and (of all things) in Tate, marble dust gets loaded into covered hoppers (it’s an ingredient in chicken feed; chickens need grit in it). Marble chips get bagged for retail stores, or loaded in dump trucks for landscaping dealers. Larger marble chunks/slabs can go by truck or rail either on flatcars, bulkhead flats, or gons. Usually gravel loaded onto rail is ballast, in some cases some RR’s don’t have a quarry on line, so must haul in ballast from another line.
Hope this helps.
Brad
Gravel comes in a number of sizes, for a number of purposes, and a lot of it moves by rail, but not usually for any great distance. In this area, sizes range from pea gravel (less than 1/2 inch in any dimension) to drainage stone (chunks from fist to softball size.)
The one kind of a gravel source that isn’t a quarry (a place where stone is broken up and taken out of the ground) is a gravel pit where the gravel was laid down by a river. Pit gravel (aka river rock) is usually smooth and rounded, while crushed stone is rough and jagged. From the pit operator’s point of view, the best thing about a gravel pit is that the stone doesn’t need crushing, just sizing.
Some gravel meant for use as ballast is loaded directly into ballast cars, which usually have special arrangements for discharging their cargo in controlled quantities in such a way that it won’t end up on the railheads. Side-dump gondolas were popular for this service.
The one thing you might want to try is to get a recording of an operating rock crusher, to play in a loop at your model. You can hear the prototype almost as far as you can see it!
Chuck
I live on the Progressive Rail branchline thru Richfield MN, about 7-8 blocks south of Model Stone co. in Minneapolis. Model Stone gets it’s shipments of gravel and stone in covered hoppers. I think they get shipments of cement mix the same way, a big part of their business is sending out green cement-mixer trucks to construction sites filled with concrete.
Boston and Maine (Guilford) carries stone as well; open hoppers IIRC.
Back in the day, Rutland handled all sorts of quarried material. Jim Shaughnessy’s book on the Rutland has some pictures of this.
Also, don’t forget rr-operated ballast trains. Conrail hauled ballast out of an operation at Westfield, MA, IIRC; also the C&O hauled ballast from a plant in Greenbrier County, WV. Some rr-operated trains use special type ballast cars for ease of handling and discharging of their load.
Hope this helps.
work safe
G’Day Jailbreaker!
On the north-east part of Toronto was a gravel distributor located on a CNR main line. This distributor received various grades of gravel loaded in ore jimmies on one of two sidings. CN crews would simply pull through the siding, drop off about 20 or so cars, then pull back out onto the main line using the turnout at the other end. Any empties would be picked up from the adjacent track. The loaded jimmies would be pulled through a shelter housing a pit and a car shaker. Crews would use pneumatic wrenches to open the car doors, after which the car would be thoroughly shaken (not stirred ![:p] ) , until empty. The doors would be closed and the car would be pulled out, with this procedure repeated until the whole train had been emptied. A remote-contolled side- rod diesel was used to move cars about. Gravel was transferred by various conveyers from the pit and sorted into piles according to the different grades. The gravel was then loaded into trucks for distribution to construction sites. The whole operation was extremely compact and elegantly simple. Athough ore cars were used in this operation, any sort of mineral hopper could be substituted. As for modelling this distributor, only two or three tracks would be required, a small open shed-like structure for the shaker/pit house, various conveyers for transferring the gravel into assorted piles, and finally numerous dump-trucks and a small yard office structure for the distributor.
Hope this is helpful. Cheers mate!
I grew up in Stonewall, MB Canada in the 60’s and there were extensive quarries on the edge of town. By that time the quarry was shipping crushed limestone by truck to Winnipeg. However they were burning limestone to produce lime. This was shipped out in dedicated boxcars that were marked “Return to Williams Siding when empty”. This was the name of the siding serving the quarry. Pulp wood was shipped in using gondolas and was used to stoke the fires in the kilms. Coal was also brought in but not in hoppers but boxcars. This was the normal way to ship coal on the Canadian Prairies. Previously to a good roa system various grades of crushed rock was shipped by rail to Winnipeg (about 20 miles away). Origianlly the quarry produced cut stone for buildings. As the quality of stone decreased, less building stone was quarried until just lime and rock was produced. The quarries finally closed in the late 60’s or early 70’s due to a highly manual process, poor quality stone and the close approximaty to town. I remeber losing a recess due to blasting across the road next to school’s playground.
The Greater Winnipeg Water District Railway was orignally built to help construct the aquaduct from Shoal Lake to Winnipeg. After this it earned its keep by hauling sand and gravel into Winnipeg for the City and constrcution contractors. When the pits finally played out the operation ceased as the City was unwilling to expend the money to expand the railline to the new pits. Now the heavy trucks beat the roads up with their heavy loads. This operation ceased in the late 1990’s. The railway still hauls supplies to the aquaduct intake at Shoal Lake.
The Alaska Railroad still ships large amounts of sand and gravel into Anchorage for the construction business.
Granit Rock Co, Aromas, CA sends weekly Rock Trains on the S.F. Pininsula.
A variety of 100 ton 2 bay hoppers are used, SP, Granite Rock, Golden West Service, etc.[banghead]
Prefer coal in your hoppers, boys: The alternative is that your railroad will be taken for granite. [:D][:D][:D]
In my area there are numerous Granite Quarries. A nearby company, Cold Spring Granite mines the granite in large chunks, and then cuts it down with wire saws to smaller sizes to be used for large building fronts, and smaller tile sizes as well as for grave stones. Another company, it used to be Meridian, but I don’t remember the current name, mines the granite, and crushes it into railroad rip-rap, ballast, and smaller sizes to be used in road construction and concrete. We have many business in the area that also make granite counter tops.
Any railroad can haul rock. You just need to make the railroad service your company.
A friend of mine models the Wisconsin Central and he has a gravel quarry that his trains serve each day. Then his Wisconsin Central units haul it to were ever he needs it. Imagining railroads comes in handy when you model. There are no ends at what you can do especially with a gravel of stone quarry.
James
Lots of helpful information has already been given. Just remember that any amount of gravel or crushed stone weighs more than a similar amount of coal, so don’t heap up the loads in your hoppers or gondolas. I think that a couple of feet below the top chord of the car is about right.
Wayne
I’ll second that: The one photo I have of double-headed big boys shows them hauling an 89-car train of bauxite (aluminum ore); the hoppers appeared to be only half filled!
We model what we know most of the time. I work for a sand and gravel company and modeled one in HO called South Shore Aggregates. Sand a gravel travel in hoppers or gondola cars. Always open top. Dimensiond cut stone on flats. My model does not offer dimention stone. Just dont forget a track scale close by the plant. The RR hates ruined cars from overloading.