loading/unloading open hoppers

[RAILCAT]

Anyone tried a method of loading and unloading open hoppers with loose coal
or other material. Say through a flood loader at a mine and unloading at
a power plant.

[JoeD]

I have an HO Tyco two bay hopper that came with a set for unloading coal.  I toyed with rigging a simular system in N scale, but there's just not enough weight to keep things working.  I have had the pleasure of operating on Bruce Petty's layout and he rigged an cleaver way to load and unload ore.  http://lariverrailroads.com/gravel_pit.html  It's a ton of fun to load these cars on one side of the layout and then work them to the other side and unload them.  Spend half a day and probalby 30 pounds of river sand doing ops.

JOe

[Atlas Paul]

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[ljudice]

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Pretty cool...

[eric220]

That is pretty darn impressive.

[sirenwerks]

I think one of the N scale mags had an article on a such a  system. Can't remember how the cars were emptied though. I will check my scanned articles later.

[bbussey]

Rick Spano offered a limited-run kit of the coal dumper about 30 years ago.  The Metropolitan N Scale RR Club in Englewood NJ had one at the time, in a 6x2 foot module that detached from the layout so it could be taken to various shows in the area.  We would have a yard full of about 30 loaded cars and switch them into the rotary dumper.  It would take about an hour to run through the entire load.  The coal dumped into a barge in the river that had holes in the simulated coal load so that the loose coal would fall through into a container.  When the container filled up, it was used to reload the hopper cars.  We had a slo-mo motor on the dumper which automatically shut off when the dump cycle completed, much slower than in this video.  It was pretty slick.

[Ed Kapuscinski]

I remember operating that dumper for the layout tours during the 93 NMRA Convention in Valley Forge. Definitely one of the highlights of my weekend.

[JoeD]

I've seen rotary dumps a number of times but would love to figure out how to make the undersides open to dump as in Bruce's video.  I did some mock ups awhile back, but getting enough weight stashed in a 2 bay to keep it stable enough during the dumping process was a trick.  I think metal powder and epoxy would do the trick.

Joe

[Ian MacMillan]

I have an HO Tyco two bay hopper that came with a set for unloading coal.  I toyed with rigging a simular system in N scale, but there's just not enough weight to keep things working.  I have had the pleasure of operating on Bruce Petty's layout and he rigged an cleaver way to load and unload ore.  http://lariverrailroads.com/gravel_pit.html  It's a ton of fun to load these cars on one side of the layout and then work them to the other side and unload them.  Spend half a day and probalby 30 pounds of river sand doing ops.

JOe

Best part of that site is all the industrial trackage documentation!

[Ed Kapuscinski]

I've seen rotary dumps a number of times but would love to figure out how to make the undersides open to dump as in Bruce's video.  I did some mock ups awhile back, but getting enough weight stashed in a 2 bay to keep it stable enough during the dumping process was a trick.  I think metal powder and epoxy would do the trick.
Joe

I think Rick's trick is the clamp. You just clamp the car down, and it's good to go.

[bbussey]

I've seen rotary dumps a number of times but would love to figure out how to make the undersides open to dump as in Bruce's video.  I did some mock ups awhile back, but getting enough weight stashed in a 2 bay to keep it stable enough during the dumping process was a trick.  I think metal powder and epoxy would do the trick.

Joe, I'm confused.  Are you referring to the Spano rotary dumper, or something else?  We regularly used Kadee (MTL) twin hoppers for the dumper.  They were preferred in fact, because it was difficult to center the cars on the dumper when operating it from the far end of the module and the 36' length was less likely to snag on the dumper framing by having it too close to the end of the dump platform.  We had a dedicated set of KD hoppers for public shows and operating sessions that had the hatches cemented shut to keep the coal from leaking out.  We used black ballast for the "coal" as real coal dust would gum up the works.

I think Rick's trick is the clamp. You just clamp the car down, and it's good to go.

The coal hopper and the control booth were sytrene sheet, all other components were either white metal or pewter.  The deck was heavy and very solid.  The pulley rotates the deck up with the car against the top "clamps" and the entire group then rotates further to upend the car and empty the coal.  It wasn't turned enough to totally empty the car, but it emptied at least 80% of the cargo so it gave the impression that the car was fully emptied.  The dumper worked with all N scale hopper models of the time period.  A magent runs the length of the coal deck between the rails so that the cars automatically uncouple when pushed on the deck.  An idler 50' or longer flatcar was needed between the locomotive and the last car so the hopper could be spotted on the ramp and pushed off without losing the flatcar and without stalling the locomotive on the unpowered coal deck.

DKS probably can explain it better, as he probably was involved in the design of the original.  He has worked with Rick on much of the animation on the Sceniced & Undecided.

[Nato]

           A Bizillion Years Ago in the early days of N Gauge (not Scale) Arnold Rapido offered a hopper car that was loaded from a loading tipple with plastic pellets (think Airsoft BB's).If I recall you moved the car over an unloading track section which engaged a catch (latch) that opened the bottom doors causing unloading. I was semi-tempted to buy one untill I saw the large size of the pellets,nor real scale coal. Nate Goodman (Nato). Salt Lake,Utah.

[RAILCAT]

Thanks for everyone input. The Clinchfield illusion method seem it may be
a way to go.

[nkalanaga]

Nato:  I have one of those operating Arnold Rapido hoppers.  It looks more like a 2-bay covered hopper, so many years ago I put a roof on it.  It still operates, though, and is loaded with lead shot.  One has to be careful not to bump the lever, but the weight does make switching fun.

As a hopper it worked fine with plain sand, so you wouldn't have had to use the Arnold pellets.