Chains as gondola load?

[nkalanaga]

Way back in 1973, my father brought home a pile of hump lists from the Pasco yard.  I copied all of the Hill Line car numbers from them, as pre-BN freight car rosters were hard to find, at least for a broke teenager, before the internet.  I also saved the "contents" data, where it was listed, although most of the cars showed just "loaded" or "empty"

One of the oddest was gons, most 50 ft +/-, showing "chains" as the load.  Anyone know what kind of chains would be shipped by the gon load, and how they were loaded?

[Chris333]

Probably just piled up:
http://www.blueoceantackle.com/8000_feet_used_3_inch_chain.jpg
http://www.blueoceantackle.com/anchor_chain.htm

[nkalanaga]

That sounds easy enough.  Thank you!

As many shipyards as Puget Sound had in the 70s it makes sense that they would use a lot of anchor chains, but I never realized how big  the things were.  I would have assumed that a "3 inch" chain had 3 inch links, not that the links are made from 3 inch steel rod.

Living in a near-desert, I assumed the chain was just to hold the anchor, not that it provided much of the anchorage itself.  Now all I have to do is figure out what size chains would have been common on North Pacific fishing boats and similar sized craft. 

[Missaberoad]

Probably just piled up:
http://www.blueoceantackle.com/8000_feet_used_3_inch_chain.jpg
http://www.blueoceantackle.com/anchor_chain.htm

Okay I want to see the 1,996,500 lb strength chain, I bet that's impressive. 

[nkalanaga]

Looking at their chart, it doesn't go that high, but it's probably the 5 1/4 inch chain shown in the top picture, with the Coke can.  Any useful length of that would need more than one gon...

[Chris333]

I remember pics of an Erie train full of gons hauling one long cable. Just thrown over to the next car with some slack.

[nkalanaga]

That would be an interesting load for Ntrak.  Rigid multicar loads can be hard to run, but flexible chain or cable should work fine.

One site I found said that most ships' anchor chains are 10 90-foot sections, or 900 feet.  Chain used on the WW II Liberty Ships was 3790 lbs/90 feet, 2 1/8 inch links, 125 links per 90 feet, so one could put several of those in a gon, at least by weight.  They also said that chain size was matched to ship size, so North Pacific fishing boats, a common product of Puget Sound shipyards, would probably use similar chain.  That would be relatively small chain, 18.5 links/inch, so shouldn't be hard to find in model or craft shops.  I'll have to start looking.  The problem might be finding the right link shape.

[Blazeman]

You may find some references in publications for Liberty Ships. Most of the anchor and chain originated at Baldt's in Chester, PA.

[nkalanaga]

If most of the Liberty Ship chain came from PA, then most of it in the 70s probably did as well.  That would explain it going through Pasco, and an occasional load could be routed over my line.  Looks like I need to start looking for some chain.  Looking at some of the online prices for small chain it could be a very expensive load, though, even more so than loading an autorack.

[Philip H]

Odd thought - try jewelry making suppliers . . . .

[nkalanaga]

A very good place to look, but as far as I know there are none here in the wilds of Appalachia, and little evidence of ship modelers.  I'll try Michaels and Hobby Lobby first, and I know Micro-Mark has suitable chain, but that's where I looked at the price.  If those fail, then I can try online, or give up on the idea.  After all, it would be a through load, not to or from any of my industries, so basically just an excuse to run another gon.

Now I need to figure out how to ship 5,000 feet of 1.75 inch wire rope to my mining company.  I asked the chief engineer at Hecla's Lucky Friday mine, years ago, abll about the cables they used, but never thought to ask how they shipped it.  On a spool, I assume, but that leaves a lot of possibilities, especially 42 years ago.