I sometimes look at loaded railcars and wonder how some things are unloaded. A few examples are: open-top wood chip cars, and the old, beat-up gondolas full of scrap metal. How are they unloaded?
Woodchip gons: with dumpers–either rotary dumpers or devices that stand the cars on end (if the cars have an end door at the A end, which a lot of them do).
Those old scrap gons: either with an electromagnet or one of those claw-type devices at the end of a backhoe (which can also be used for demolition of buildings, grappling ties, or whatever; I don’t have the technical name for it).
There’s a machine that stands 268,000# railcars on end?[:P] I’ve got to get me one of those-it sounds fun![;)] It sounds like this would be at a paper mill, which, I’m sure would have a lot of big, expensive machines. Granted, the only wood chip cars I’ve seen are on the DM&E, and look pretty beat up and old. I wouldn’t have been to surprised, if you had told me that someone opened the end door, and unloaded them with a bobcat.
There is a place that sells ground covers that receives bark in woodchip gondolas. They have nothing out there that looks like it could be a rotory dumper or lift the car up. I suspect they use tractors to unload the stuff. By the way, all the cars are dump end gondolas.
Wouldn’t the electromagnets also tend to lift the gondola cars as well?
They can probably only lift a couple of tons, at most.
Indeed, they just grab a few cubic feet of scrap metal and lift it away, it’s like lifting a paperclip off of a metal desk with a magnet.
with the sorry state of some of the scrap gons I see around here - they should just load the whole gon - scrap and all into the furnace.
dd
That is probably mainly due to the treatment by the scrap yards. Have you ever seen that “Dirty Jobs” episode where Mike Rowe works in a scrap yard? Don’t forget all of the stories we have read on here about how they abuse the gondolas.
Most of the scrap gondolas I see have “CBQ” or “SOU” on the side. That should tell you how old they are.
How are powders, like cement, that would stick to the inside of a car unloaded?
Cement is shipped in regular covered hoppers and in covered hoppers that use pressure to assist in unloading. If the lading is likely to stick to the car, they probably use a vibrator to loosen it.
http://www.trinityrailcar.com/railcars/index.html
http://www.trinityrailcar.com/railcars/hopper\hopper_3230.html?auto=hopper\hopper_3230.html
http://www.trinityrailcar.com/railcars/hopper%5Chopper_3281.html?auto=hopper%5Chopper_3281.html
http://www.americanrailcar.com/ariinc/products/manufacturing.aspx
http://www.americanrailcar.com/ariinc/pdf/hopper/ARI-3256_AMFX.pdf
http://www.americanrailcar.com/ariinc/pdf/hopper/AMFX_T3272_Through_Sill.pdf
Mostly coal and taconite.
Lately there’s been a group of former GN and NP woodchip cars running around the northern half of Utah.
I have no clue on the wood chip cars, but I have seen the gons unloaded by the large magnic, and the large claws. I know in mapleton, IL there is a CAT plant. CAT usually uses the magnics, and they sometimes will lift the gons off of there trucks. It is not uncommon to find this situation.
We must have a corner on the market for former CBQ cars.[:P]
? I thought with taconite, they just opened the bottom doors, and it sort of gravity-rolled out on it’s own.
I’ve seen coal hoppers unloaded by a backhoe that was driven onto the top of the cars.
The Chip Plant here at Thornton yard in Vancouver uses front end loaders to unload chip cars, they secure them next to the loading dock, open the door on the A end, drive on and unload them that way.
It’s technical name is the backhoe claw thingy. Though it’s often sold under the trademark of “The Thing-A-Majiger”[;)]