Help me pick an industry
#1
So on my layout I have a small peninsula with a double spur industry on it. I have my Glacier gravel co building set up there now, but dont have my mind made up. I want some kind of a stone/rock/aggregate co there. I want to be able to service a large amound of open hoppers and my difco dump cars too. To mix it up one side of the peninsula is a hill that could possible have a conveyer coming out or something. my layout is set in northern midwest. Anybody here have any ideas? I was thinking of bashing my gracial gravel into somethinh new.
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#2
Our sister railroad here in KS deals with a lot of agreagates loading both small dedicated, and individual rock cars and cement. The one here in Wichita loads cars for both the BN UP and Watco. They have variety of 4 bay hoppers they own plus they load out cement on a small spur with short air flow cars. They also load old flood unloading coal cars that are in 20 car sets. At other locations they load three bay hoppers with vibrator brackets that they take the hatches off of and load with sand. The place in Wichita is also taking in empty scrap gons that they are loading with receyled metals from demolition projects. Also all materials come in by rail from a quarry in SE KS and then is graded sorted and sold at the Wichita Facility.

If you would like more info I can try and provide it..

Greg
Be Wise Beware Be Safe
"Mountain Goat" Greg


https://www.facebook.com/mountaingoatgreg/
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#3
A little more info would be much appreciated, and also maybe a possible picture? Sounds like a very interesting and fun to model place!
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#4
Well, I was watching an episode of dirty jobs one time and saw something that would be easy to model.

I don't remember the name of the material, but it would be pretty easy to model. They use it as a base for some paints, and it's like boot black or boot blank or something of that nature. It's a rock of sorts that they milled into a finer grain, then bagged it and shipped it.

A possible way of modeling it would be to have a loading dock where boxcars of bags can be unloaded, then that same boxcar reloaded with the material after bagging, maybe a couple more to handle the amount of loading, which would also be dependent on the amount of traffic you have.

To utilize hoppers, you could have the un-crushed rock in covered hoppers, then load it as a large bulk shipment into another covered hopper. You could also have the un-crushed rock in open hoppers for a short travel distance from where it was loaded into the car to the mill.

You could have one track be hoppers in, and the other boxcars in, then both would also serve as the outbound track for the same type of car. One track would be hoppers out, the other boxcars out.
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#5
Kevin

Shoot me a private message and i will work on getting some photos for you.

The SKOL picks up cars that are leased by Cornejo and/or owned by WATCO from the quarry on the south part of their railroad. They use a variety of cars that are leased by the construction company and they paint a giant neon green stripe on EVERYTHING they own.

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They genearlly arrive in blocks of 20 to 40 cars and are old 4 bay Bethlam coal cars. The plant has its own dedicated switcher that works the cars during daylight hours to first unload all the cars. These cars are loaded with whatever the quarry can dump into them and the material is then is then screened into all sorts of different sizes. The cars are then shoved out of the way for loading screened material later.

While the material is being sorted they roll down and will move the cement cars that the BNSF had dropped off over night. They unload the materials here and mix it for use in all sorts of construction projects.

They then grab some of the cars they emptied and they are loaded with screened materials per the customers needs and are set to be picked up by the SKOL that night. The loaded cars are then sent back to the SKOL then to the SLWC to different customers that use the products for constrution projects.

They have also loaded small blocks of ballast cars for the BNSF UP and WATCO. The Difco cars are usually loaded with large material for Rip-RAP but maybe they could loasd used concrete ? Most recently they are recieving empty gondolas from the BNSF for loading with scrap materials from construction projects. It is mostly used rebar metal pipes from roads. These cars are lined up for the BNSF to pick at night.
Be Wise Beware Be Safe
"Mountain Goat" Greg


https://www.facebook.com/mountaingoatgreg/
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#6
RRManiac Wrote:... watching an episode of dirty jobs ... the name of the material ... a base for some paints, and it's like boot black or boot blank ... It's a rock of sorts that they milled into a finer grain, then bagged it and shipped it. ...

That would probably be the episode where Mike Rowe drops his flashlight and then crawls inside the Ball Mill to retreive it on the show about being a Bone Black Technician ...

... a quick Google search solved that problem.
biL

Lehigh Susquehanna & Western 

"America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves." ~~Abraham Lincoln
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#7
P5se Camelback Wrote:
RRManiac Wrote:... watching an episode of dirty jobs ... the name of the material ... a base for some paints, and it's like boot black or boot blank ... It's a rock of sorts that they milled into a finer grain, then bagged it and shipped it. ...

That would probably be the episode where Mike Rowe drops his flashlight and then crawls inside the Ball Mill to retreive it on the show about being a Bone Black Technician ...

... a quick Google search solved that problem.
Would be nice to see their process broken down, cause it looks like a pain in the butt. The system I worked on at the one mill I was at was much simpler and every machine sifted the coarser material right back into the feed system, and we ran a bunch of different mat'l that included plastics, cow bones, wax, rubber mixed nylon, powdered ink, nylon, bullet proof top secret plastic for army vehicles Eek, hard foam, gel (for pills) and elastomers.


I'll have to look for that episode
Tom

Model Conrail

PM me to get a hold of me.
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#8
Yeah thats it. I knew it was something black, but I couldn't remember what it was. That was definately funny.

Something else to add to ops would be smaller boxcars of parts for when something breaks, or perhaps a flatcar for a bigger piece of machinery.
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#9
Wikipedia's entry is http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bone_char ...and lists the "Dirty Jobs" episode along with a lot of uses (customers and shipment mode clues for your RR) for the material. Bob
James Thurber - "It is better to know some of the questions than all of the answers."
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