Wood chips headed to paper mills. The chips are specially prepared for papermaking, thin and perhaps 1-1/2 to 2" in size. This type of car is spotted over a pit and a large vibrator is laid upon the top so as to shake the car and rapidly empty it. From there, the chips are conveyed to enormous piles, then fed into a digester where the pulping process begins. Some paper mills are equipped with equipment to rotate and dump chip cars, just like coal hoppers at utility plants. I think the Federal Paperboard hopper is designed to be unloaded this way. It may still be the case, but years ago the railroads offered attractive rate incentives for papermakers to install equipment to rotate and dump chip hoppers because the cars were quickly unloaded which improved car utilization and because equipment damage was greatly reduced. Those car vibrators are murder on equipment, especially if the unload operator is lazy and keeps it running after the car is empty.
Yes. We have, or I should say 'had' many pulp mills in this region. A great many are now closed and gone. Anyhow, that one is quite different from the chip cars in my region. Some used to be emptied via a vacuuming process. Later some of the so-called "100 ton" style, (in various visual configurations), were dumped much like a dump truck, being tipped up and one end being a gate. And then there was the rotary dumping as well.
Yes, the pulp and paper industry has suffered a significant retrenchment and rationalization in the last two decades, much like the steel business I guess. I agree that it's saddening to behold, as mills provide vast employment of suppliers, transportation workers, retailers and tradespeople far beyond the mill's main gate, plus manufacturing jobs are often skilled and pay well.
After we purchased the New Braunfels from Amtrak we removed the diaphragm plates from the ends, planning to replace them with tube types required for Private Varnish by Amtrak. The standard steel plate diaphragms were hard on the high level cars run on most western trains when a PV was coupled on the end of a train. Well that never got done. They are just pieces of 9.5" diameter fabric reinforced rubber hose with special mounting hardware. However, they are very expensive. So, a couple of old ones were located in a scrap pile at the Austin Steam Train Association yard and modified to fit. Still need to add canvas bellows and paint. It was no fun finding the old mounting holes for the leaf spring brackets at the top, drilling the Bondo out and re-tapping them, all the while on a ladder in 101 degree heat. Only one end done so far but enough to put it in the train for a non revenue shake down cruise tomorrow.
Manual labor on a ladder in triple digit heat sounds like guaranteed weight loss. Patent it and sell it to Hollywood?
The problem with that kind of weight loss is that I pack it all back on when I drink a few gallons of water. Sure go through a lot of it staying hydrated. I guess it is kind of a cleansing affair.
Either Grain, or powdered cement train, as it accelerates north out of the Longmont Siding. Two unit DPU set, approaching the north end of siding. Stopped briefly, to set switch ahead of them, for the Main, before moving out. Maybe 5 minutes. Didn't take long to start picking up speed, on the downhill!
Former N&W main at Radford, VA in April 2013. Through its controlling interest in the N&W, the PRR influenced its choice of signals.
Mr. Straw Were you in Rosenberg August 13, just asking because I was railfanning with a group of friends that day.
It is a Missouri Pacific car. One of two diners ordered from Budd for the Colorado Eagle before WWII. They were delivered in 1942. It was on a ranch somewhere used as a hunting lodge where the MoPac brass would sometimes hang out. The sister car went to Mexico and has recently been purchased and brought back to the US. It and the caboose are at the IGN depot museum in Rockdale, Texas not far from my place in Central Texas.
This is what the interior of the diner looks like. Yeah that's me in the mirror way off. Kind of a selfie I suppose.
