IronBeltKen
Lazy Daydreamer
...besides grain? And, do 4-bays and 3-bays ever work together hauling the same commodity, or are they designed for totally separate functions? Enquiring minds need to know. 
What do 3- or 4-bay covered hoppers carry...
- Thread starter IronBeltKen
- Start date
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Plastic pellets, notice the discharge style.
Cement, again, notice the discharge gates...
4427 Center Discharge, rarely used with pellets...
Grains (Cargill elevator in background)
The reason I'm posting this is to familiarize people with the discharge styles. Plastic pellets usually get hauled cars like the first.
My SO tells me her grandmother insisted on JF sugar for baking cookies. And I just saw an HO JF labeled hopper for sale in an old issue of "Model Railroader".
Good one!
And then there are the "Airslide" cars that have the steep slopes and small air holes to help push the load down to the gates.
again used mainly for powders like flour and such.
It was designed to be coupled onto, If I actually had a camera when I worked in plastics I'd post up some routing pics but I don't.
Here's two examples of unloading from the hatches
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Dallas Modern HO Scale
Modern HO scale modeler
depends on what kind of hopper, some haul grain, some haul wheat, some plastic pellets, all that good stuff. most 2 bays are cement
And let's not forget Jack Frost Sugar too. Bread flour is also another common commodity. There have even been heated covered hoppers that carried chocolate. I don't thinks there's much liquid, powered, grains, or pellets that haven't been carried in some kind of covered hopper.
Bread flour is also another common commodity. There have even been heated covered hoppers that carried chocolate. I don't thinks there's much liquid, powered, grains, or pellets that haven't been carried in some kind of covered hopper.
IronBeltKen
Lazy Daydreamer
Thanks for the replies y'all! I decided to fill out the waybills with plastic pellets; I didn't read the fine print in Josh's response until later, I'm hoping none of my operators will know that pellets aren't normally carried in 3-bays...we shall see!
Well, it you wanna get technical, carbon black was carried only in two bay hoppers until the mid-90's when some three bay hopper were built. They are a special design, unlikely to be confused with any other covered hopper, because the stuff is both very heavy and fine, and the hoppers have to absolutely airtight. But how many people are ever going to notice? I know, when I'm doing an operational session, I'm lucky to pick up the cars with the right numbers let alone examine each one to make sure it's really carrying a prototypical load. )
sledgehammer
Member
C Hopper's life span...
Guys, the truth of the matter is, a covered hopper will be progressively "demoted" as the car ages. Brand new covered hoppers of course will be used for grain service, and this will include the areas of food processing, for Kelloggs, General Mills, etc, as well as export, and then maybe at the end of that era for cattle feed for Agway and Blue Seal Feeds and such. Then, comes the first demotion, when the car can no longer be considered "sterile" for food consumption products if you will, and it may start being used for fertilizers, wood pellets, or other bulk commodities. At the end of the cars life, the car gets demoted to one more stage in this neck of the woods, and that's road salt. Even now, I see old MILW Road, CNW, MP, UP, as well as other roads being used one last time... the next thing these cars will see after this is the cutting torch!...where they will cut it up for recycling at the steel mills. I think it's kinda neat to excercise this drama in the hobby....having "shiny" new cars for your grain elevators, and yet going to the extreme of some good ole "rust buckets" for the NE salt business..... As far as the ordeal of three pockets vs four pockets is extremely marketing design between the car builders and the railroads themselves, in hopes of answering to market demands. UP had a series of four pocket covered hoppers built, but returned to the three pocket in the next car building contract. Cylindrical covered hoppers have been built for various roads....three pocket, four pocket, even SIX pockets; GN owned a bunch of six pocket...and to the best of my recollection went directly into the dairy feed busness. CP still owns a bunch of four pocket, and they are still in use in the cement industry being loaded at Glen Falls NY and Jolliet Quebec. But it does seem like the design of the two bays have been exclusively for cement, regardless of ACF or ribside....just my 2 cents worth....
Guys, the truth of the matter is, a covered hopper will be progressively "demoted" as the car ages. Brand new covered hoppers of course will be used for grain service, and this will include the areas of food processing, for Kelloggs, General Mills, etc, as well as export, and then maybe at the end of that era for cattle feed for Agway and Blue Seal Feeds and such. Then, comes the first demotion, when the car can no longer be considered "sterile" for food consumption products if you will, and it may start being used for fertilizers, wood pellets, or other bulk commodities. At the end of the cars life, the car gets demoted to one more stage in this neck of the woods, and that's road salt. Even now, I see old MILW Road, CNW, MP, UP, as well as other roads being used one last time... the next thing these cars will see after this is the cutting torch!...where they will cut it up for recycling at the steel mills. I think it's kinda neat to excercise this drama in the hobby....having "shiny" new cars for your grain elevators, and yet going to the extreme of some good ole "rust buckets" for the NE salt business..... As far as the ordeal of three pockets vs four pockets is extremely marketing design between the car builders and the railroads themselves, in hopes of answering to market demands. UP had a series of four pocket covered hoppers built, but returned to the three pocket in the next car building contract. Cylindrical covered hoppers have been built for various roads....three pocket, four pocket, even SIX pockets; GN owned a bunch of six pocket...and to the best of my recollection went directly into the dairy feed busness. CP still owns a bunch of four pocket, and they are still in use in the cement industry being loaded at Glen Falls NY and Jolliet Quebec. But it does seem like the design of the two bays have been exclusively for cement, regardless of ACF or ribside....just my 2 cents worth....
jbaakko
Diesel Detail Freak
Plastic pellets, notice the discharge style.
Cement, again, notice the discharge gates...
4427 Center Discharge, rarely used with pellets...
Grains (Cargill elevator in background)
The reason I'm posting this is to familiarize people with the discharge styles. Plastic pellets usually get hauled cars like the first.
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sledgehammer
Member
Looked further into this situation....The two bay covered hoppers are built with a steeper angle of slope sheet, so that the POWDER products, such as cement, unload with the assist of pocket vibrators. Grain readily flows out of most gravity hoppers w/o much hassle.
kenw
5th Generation Texian
Another spotting difference (it's a bit hard to tell from the ground, tho) is the type of hatches. Grains usually have trough (long) hatches and chemical (plastic pellets, potash, cement, etc) usually have smaller, round hatches as they seal better.
If they are loaded and parked, look for birds on top of grain hoppers......mealtime!
If they are loaded and parked, look for birds on top of grain hoppers......mealtime!
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Beachbum
Member
My SO tells me her grandmother insisted on JF sugar for baking cookies. And I just saw an HO JF labeled hopper for sale in an old issue of "Model Railroader".That's why I made the Jack Frost reference. It was one of the first plastic covered hoppers made in HO and the Jack Frost hopper was by far the most popular, probably because it was the most colorful and everyone knew Jack Frost Sugar. I think there was actually a prototype for this car but I never did find out for sure.
Rico
BNSF Modeller
Good one!
And then there are the "Airslide" cars that have the steep slopes and small air holes to help push the load down to the gates.
again used mainly for powders like flour and such.
sledgehammer
Member
Those airslides are a whole different animal...because the airslide is built from the bottom gate to the end of the car, capturing the entire section of the slope to the end of the car. You end up with a two dementional slope....one to the pocket, the second slope to to the center of the hopper (which would be the middle of the track)...THAT car progressed from a single pocket to a double pocket car...to unload quicker.....FYI
Beachbum
Member
Not just hoppers here, but a handy reference from CSX:
http://www.csx.com/?fuseaction=customers.acquanted#DOC26911
Scroll down to the bottom of the page.
http://www.csx.com/?fuseaction=customers.acquanted#DOC26911
Scroll down to the bottom of the page.
tomustang
I'm Blunt..
It was designed to be coupled onto, If I actually had a camera when I worked in plastics I'd post up some routing pics but I don't.
Here's two examples of unloading from the hatches
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