Bob,
The stock and refrigerator car situation was really a mess.
The stock cars were not bad in grain service at all and there were
a lot of them. BN's system is what fell down. All they would do
is clean the cars and then give them to individual elevators to
be lined with plywood. After that they were assigned to that
particular elevator. Since the cars back from the unloading points
in random order this required a great deal of switching to make
up branchline locals. If the Railroad had been willing to line the
cars they could have been in a free runner type pool just like the
box cars were. These cars were also not light weighed at the time
of conversion. The Office Manager of the feed mill where I was
Agent picked up on this right away. After I had a couple weighed
we agreed on 500 lbs of dunnage in each car. In addition to the
freight charges they were buying their grain based on track scale
weights so it was an big issue for them.
The refrigerator cars were much more complicated. All the lining
and insulation had to be ripped out and the floor racks, meat
rails, (if so equipped), and bunker bulkheads removed. The ice
hatches were usually tack welded shut and new loading hatches cut
into the roofs about two ribs in. Usually just one on each side.
These were covered with a homemade galvanized cover attached with
big sheet metal screws. Various methods were used to construct a
nailing place for grain doors, none of which worked very well.
They were difficult to unload and required a lot of shoveling.
The above referred to plug door cars. Swinging door cars were even
more difficult. Very few locations would have the side room to
allow the opening of a swinging door so they were just removed.
Both sides were filled in with grain doors as close to the roof as
they could get. The four foot opening made unloading more
difficult as everyone's system was set up for a six foot door.
Most of the cable or electric bobcats or shovels were almost
four feet wide so it was slow going.
The cars they really hated to get were ballast cars. No pit or
conveyor system in use had been built for a car with lengthwise
doors. Even a coal hopper would have been better.
Now there are places that can load or unload a 110 car train in
about six hours. Some progress has been made.
Russ
----- Original Message -----
From: robert runty
To: CBQ@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Wednesday, 30 November, 2005 13:29
Subject: Re: [CBQ] Covered Hoppers For Grain
Paul,
I was going to respond earlier but Russ beat me to it. He's right in
that up till the mid to late 70's, almost all grain on secondary and branch
lines moved in the 40' boxes. The big, modern covered hoppers in grain service
were usually used at the big elevators on the main lines.
I spoke with Richard Kistler a while back and he related as to how during
the early years of the big grain export program around '70 and '71, anything
that could hold grain was pressed into service. He recalled seeing stockcars
with the insides covered with plywood and even old modified refrigerator cars
in use on the Neb. branches.
Bob
Russell Strodtz <19main@groundcontrol.us> wrote: Paul,
From my experience most of the elevators in Northern Illinois
were boxcar only until they quit rail usage altogether, And,
as I have said before, the car's roadname was not even a factor
in regards to who loaded it. A 40' box car is a 40' box car.
Since the CB&Q had a rather large fleet of 40' box cars they
would be in the majority but I don't think they were ever used
to the exclusion of anything else.
The early three bay covered hoppers were very seldom used for
basic grains. Since they were new a great deal of effort was
made to find them higher rated commodities. Grain products
like grits, soybean meal, or feed were usually loaded in these
cars, along with minerals and industrial products like petroleum
coke.
The first large 200M covered hoppers are sort of a mystery. There
must have been some favored, high output elevator somewhere that
got them in quantity but I don't know where it was. By the BN era
they had come up with CSD435 which was intended to keep cars on
their owner's property. This was really a major error as it did
not lead to the build-up of a large national fleet as had existed
with 40' box cars. Everyone started rationing the larger and newer
cars and the customers just plain quit shipping rail. It took until
the late 80's to reverse that trend and the only way it was done
was by guarantying the customers would get the cars as ordered.
Now pricing and car supply are linked. They do not sell service
for which they can not provide cars.
Russ
----- Original Message -----
From: Paul K.
To: cbQ@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Monday, 28 November, 2005 00:46
Subject: [CBQ] Covered Hoppers For Grain
All,
I need to buy several models of these cars (HO) for my rural, line located
in north central Illinois off the double-track main roughly halfway between
Chicago and Galesburg. My free-lanced branchline on the layout is imagined to
be located probably close to where Neponset might be situated in the "real"
world.
Since I am modeling the CB&Q in the late 1960's, I naturally already
have a majority of Burlington's cars to be used to service the elevators and
local related grain industry customers on the line.
My question is that at the LHS I see cars lettered for several grain
dealers, haulers, etc., and was wondering if I should just get a mix of most
of these to round out my fleet, or would only a couple names be used in a
specific area or part of the country meaning I would have to buy several of
the same few named cars?
Does anyone know what names would be used in my modeled area of Lines
East?
Thanks . . .
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