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I recently picked up a Walthers Medusa Cement plant kit on sale (17 bucks! ) and am curious about the cars that would service this industry. I know walthers offers cement specific cars but I figure there has to be more available cars out there. So my question is, what specifies a covered hoppers usage? I'm sure there are some cars that have specific purposes but it would seem to me that most hoppers would be generic in the sense they could haul a variety of cargo right? What differs between a car set up to carry powders and a car that carries pellets or grain? Is it just the style of roof hatches and the unloading mechanisms?
Im aware it is a recipient of cement rather than the shipper but thanks. So only 2 bay hoppers carry cement? Is there a reason for this perhaps a weight/efficiency issue? I would think they would have moved on to larger cars like every other industry seems to have done.
Im aware it is a recipient of cement rather than the shipper but thanks. So only 2 bay hoppers carry cement? Is there a reason for this perhaps a weight/efficiency issue? I would think they would have moved on to larger cars like every other industry seems to have done.
There may be some older 100 ton hoppers that might be triples but the vast majority of cement hoppers are twins, either 70 ton or 100 ton. For lighter commodities such as grain or plastic pellets an increase in tonnage capacity results in a larger increase in volume.
Cement is very heavy (by volume) compared to grain or plastic pellets......if you filled a grain hopper with cement the car would be WAAAAY over weight. Compare a 50lb bag of cement to a 50lb bag of grain and you'll see the relationship. I don't know what era you model, but Atlas sells gondolas with a set of canisters as a load....those canisters were used for cement before the introduction of covered hoppers. Generally railroads have dedicated cement cars because cement is very hard to clean, and noone wants cement dust in thier grain. Another factor is 2 bay cars are good for cement, but very inefficient for grain, so there's an efficiency aspect ......a larger volume car would end up looking like one of those special flatcars with 16 axles (or more) and would require special treatment and probably wouldn't be able to run in a lot of branch line areas. Montana Rail Link paints all their cement hoppers grey.....the majority are 2 bay, but they have some 3 bay as well. A lot of railroads seem to do this also.....probably because the cement stains everything very quickly.
I run a LOT of cement hoppers, and for models, I use MDC, Kato, Atlas as well the Bowser and Walthers. If you can find the Katos, get 'em. They're really nice lookin'.
fwiw, Don't see too many of this PS-style design anymore around here, most of the cement hoppers I see around here are now a center flow variant.
As stated earlier, your Medusa cement plant would be a reciever of cement, maybe 1-2 cars per day. If you want big time cement, you have to be a shipper like Lehigh Portland and the like. The Lehigh plant near me has a pretty good sized yard on the property, in addition to a rail yard about a mile away. Walthers did make a kit (discontinued) a few years ago, maybe you can still find one.
Flat sided cars locally are being replaced with 2 bay cylindrical cars from ACF and Trinity. The ACF cars are available from Atlas, but nobody does the Trinity car yet..
Big time cement is fun! Not only do you have cement going out, but aggregate and coal coming in!
While it's true the walters kit is not a "manufacturing" facility, our local manufacturing plant has 2 sets of silos EXACTLY like the kit for storage and loading of trucks (local delivery) and rail cars....now if walthers would just do some more pieces to make a complete plant....like they did for the steel plant.
) and am curious about the cars that would service this industry. I know walthers offers cement specific cars but I figure there has to be more available cars out there. So my question is, what specifies a covered hoppers usage? I'm sure there are some cars that have specific purposes but it would seem to me that most hoppers would be generic in the sense they could haul a variety of cargo right? What differs between a car set up to carry powders and a car that carries pellets or grain? Is it just the style of roof hatches and the unloading mechanisms?
