time it takes

[h2w]

what would the average time be to load a 2 bay covered hopper with cement?
ty
mark

[nkalanaga]

I have no idea, and it would depend on the hopper, as 2 bay cars come in different capacities.

Based on questionable assumptions and basic math, I came up with 20 seconds, which seems WAY to short:

Falling from 5 feet, the cement would be traveling about 18 ft/sec when it entered the car.
A two foot diameter round hatch is about 6 square feet.
This would allow about 107 cubic feet of cement per second into the car.
A 2000 cu ft car would fill in just under 20 seconds.

This can't be right because:
The entire car can't be filled through one hatch, so the hose/chute/whatever has to be repositioned, which would take more than 20 seconds each time.
It would take at least that long to open and close each hatch, adding even more time.
The car probably has to be moved to load both ends, taking much longer.

I'd be surprised if it was less than ten minutes for a 2000 cu ft car, typical of the 40s and 50s.  Even that would probably be at a major loading facility with good equipment and a dedicated switcher.  If the car has to be relocated with a tractor, a manual wheel jack, or a bunch of workers pushing it, it could take quite a bit longer.

[Spikre]

 
  at a Plant that ships several cars a day they should use a Flexible Hose to load the car,
  the car when spotted wouldn't need to be moved until loaded.
  this should take 5 - 10 minutes for a car under 2010 CUFT.
   have seen similar pictures of Grain loading in 4000+ CUFT covered hoppers, they took
  a little longer due to the size of the cars.
   Unloading could take longer depending on the site.
  many cars are loaded directly in trucks equipped with Pneumatic Unloading devices, like
  Ailslides or Power Flo type cars.
  Grain can be unloaded into ground level screw type set ups that transfer the Grain into silos
  or directly into ships for export, etc.
   don't think too much Cement gets exported, but could be not up to date on that ?
      Spikre
       

[h2w]

Thanks for the replies, I found an interesting site for Monarch Cement on their site it says it takes about 30 minutes to load each rail car, which assuming are the short  100 ton 2 bay covered hoppers
thanks
mark

[nkalanaga]

Spikre:  Thank you.  Always nice to have real data, not just assumptions and calculations! 

I didn't realize that the hoses would reach that far to either side.  My experience has been limited to watching boxcars being loaded with grain, where it all went in through one door, and covered hoppers with trough hatches, where the local elevator moved the cars with an old tractor, rather than trying to load the entire car from one spotting.  It was a small town elevator, and I don't think they were really in a hurry, as they were only switched once a day, even in harvest season.  They had a long spur, and received enough cars to keep the tractor busy for a while, plus the same people had to unload the trucks and load the hopper or boxcars.  This was in the mid 70s, and they couldn't wait to get rid of the boxcars permanently...

[Spikre]

 
   the time said in the above post would be just for loading a small car.
   the Monarch time may include spotting the car,tieing it down,loading,
  then moving it after loading,or Monarch uses a slow loading system.
   there is a good article on GATX Trans Flows and Airslides from RP CYC.
   N,
   there was a good article in Mainline on Grain Boxcars, one pic shows
  a GN boxcar on a machine that lifted the car,and tipped the grain out,then
  workers would sweep out the remaining grain.cant recall the name of the
  machine.there were pics of the Andersons loading New PS-4427 cars about
  1965,they used the flexable hose to load the cars.
  another article on the later short sided PS-4427 shows an ATSF car unloading
  into a ground level screw set up,but no actual times were given.
  there is more info out there,will try to remember more later.
             Spikre
               

removed the over-strikes.  please check that I did not alter content.  -gfh