If there is a train at an unloading area and the boxcar has been unloaded, I understand that by running somekind of ramp to an adjoining boxcar it can be unloaded throu the empty boxcar on the receiving platform, etc. Could someone pleae give me more info about this, expecially what the ramp is made out of, how big and how is it placed between the boxcar. Thanks
You’re talking about boxcars side by side on parallel tracks next to a loading/unloading platform.
The boxcars, preferably of similar length, we spotted so the car doors on each track lined up with the car doors on the parallel tracks. In unloading, only enough freight had to be removed from the car adjacent to the platform to open a passage so that freight from the car on the next parallel track could move through. The car adjacent the platform didn’t have to be completely empty to start unloading the next car over.
Then the car on the 2nd track was opened and a “bridge” placed between the two. It was a “bridge” and not a “ramp”. The platform and the car floors should have been at the same height. The word “ramp” implies a surface used to change height.
The process was repeated until the car on the last parallel track was opened and “bridged” to the platform. The all the cars on all the parallel tracks could be unloaded simultaneously.
Loading was a reverse process.
The advantage was that you could have a shorter platform and not have to handle the freight as far on the platform.
The “Bridges” could be fabricated from wood or metal. There was no real standard “Bridge”. It just had to be strong enough to take the weight of the freight and any material handling equipment, such as a forklift, that would be used. It also had to be removable or placeable in a relatively easy manner.
Usualy pieces of sheet steel simply laid between the car doors…
nothing real fancy, most ramps would be “home made”…
You dont see the practice much anymore…most facilities that had to do this did so out of lack of space, and most of those facilities were torn down long ago.
These were often the same bridges or ramps used to cross the gap between platform and car. Heavy steel that were carried by and then carried forklift trucks with load.
Jeff
Welcome to the forum. As you can see, there are some guys who know a lot and are very willing to share there knowledge.
Rich
Let’s see. One pallet carries up to about 2600 pounds on 48 inches by 40 inches. Add a forklift truck to it and you probably are going to place about roughly… 5000 pounds on 4 small wheels with a significant ground pressure.
Steel plate, 1/3 to 1/2 inch thick and wide enough to accomodate said forklift. Probably bridging 5 feet at most.
That plate will have two small metal “Teeth” welded onto the bottom off center so that the forklift can pick up one end off the floor and drop it down between boxcar and doorway. Two men can move plate also.
Sometimes a boxcar itself becomes a bridge within a building between rooms or bays.
Paper rolls have a clamp on the end of forklift. Most other freight are by hand or other method such as slipsheeting. A way of shoving cardboard under the stuff like cereal without the expense of pallets.
Grain gets grain doors made of wood. It gets punched out and man goes inside to get the corners with shovel the hard way.
Bagged product. One at a time out of there by man with good shoulders or forklift.
If you can shove it inside the boxcar and shut the door, you usually can get it out of there the same way.
Or in some cases diverted most of their business to trucks. There is one citrus packing plant that has two sidings side by side. It looks like there is probably room for 5 cars on each siding. I have never seen more than two cars there.
Yakima Washington had about … 34 shippers. This is from my first hand experience up there getting apples out of there 10+ years ago. All the shippers seemed to have rail buried in the street here and there and everywhere.
It would not be difficult at all to imagine ice reefers or mechs humming being loaded up there prior to big time trucking. Get em apples wholesale direct for .20 a pound. Never imagined that now they approach 2.00 a pound.
All of those tracks required track centers of 13 feet (or less in some pre-1920’s locations)…those close centers are now outlawed for safety reasons. As those bridge plates got longer, the structural requirements made them heavier (lose-lose situation).
Aldon still makes dock plates for small spans (dock to car floor)
As mudchicken mentined, the Aldon Company lists them in its on-line catalog under “Rail Dock Safety” as “Rail Dock Boards” or “Railroad Dockboards”, and shows them as having capacities from 15,000 to 40,000 lbs. See:
http://www.aldonco.com/catalog_category.asp?sec=2&cat=16&subid=16
See also (randomly selected):
http://www.copperloy.com/dock_boards.html
http://www.uscargotools.com/boards_and_plates.htm
and, for specific sizes and prices:
For 13’-0" track centers, with a 10’-0" wide (more or less typical) boxcars, the clear span of the dockboard would then be about 3’-0" - though you’d want it at least 6" to 1’ longer at each end for adequate bearing on and support by the car or dock floor. In Pennsylvania, the Public Utility Commission currently requires 13’-6" minimum track centers, unless there’s a close dock on 1 side, in which case it’s 14’-0"(see: http://www.puc.state.pa.us/transport/railsafe/railsafe_clearances.aspx ). So the dockboard would only need to be 6" to 1 ft. longer, or up to about 4’-0" clear span - needs to be considered, but not terrible. However, if the track centers are like 17 ft. or 25 ft. (for various scenarios), then those are beyond the scope of the typical dock