Subject:
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Re: Coal Car Question
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.trains
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Date:
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Fri, 20 Apr 2001 14:24:01 GMT
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Viewed:
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548 times
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In lugnet.trains, Larry Pieniazek writes:
> In lugnet.trains, Dave Schuler writes:
> > This isn't really about LEGO, but it is about trains, so here goes:
> >
> > On the trolley home from work tonight, we passed over a train with a long
> > series of empty coal cars. Looking down into them, I noticed that they really
> > were empty--almost no loose lumps of coal or gravel, despite the irregular
> > shape of the container interior. How are these cars emptied? Does part of the
> > car--or the whole car--tip to dump its contents?
>
> The car is rotated to empty it out. In the dusty archives of this group is a
> link to a rotary tipper that someone built.
>
> Note that in the prototype, often a cut of cars is rotated *in place*, that
> is, while still coupled in the train. This requires that one of the coupler
> shafts on each car swivel so the cars can remain coupled. Hence, sometimes
> you will see lettering on the ends that say "rotary coupler end" to show
> which end has it (you only need one end to have it if you keep the cars
> aligned correctly and the small savings in capital cost apparently is enough
> to offset the operational PITA to keep the car ends facing all the same way).
>
> Cars with hopper bays still are in use, but as other posters point out, are
> considered somewhat more troublesome. However if you don't have a rotary
> dumper at your loadout site, you have to use these, so you sometimes will
> see conventional hoppers in unit train service, not just roundbottoms like
> J2's model.
I had no idea there were so many options! The rotary design seems like
the right one. I wasn't able to take a long look, but I think the body of
the car was essentially one piece, rather than having an independent
rotating section or a bottom hatch. I don't know if it had the "rotary
coupler," but I'm not enough of a train guy even to know one if I saw it.
In any case, thanks to everyone for the helpful and cool information!
Dave!
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Message is in Reply To:
 | | Re: Coal Car Question
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| (...) The car is rotated to empty it out. In the dusty archives of this group is a link to a rotary tipper that someone built. Note that in the prototype, often a cut of cars is rotated *in place*, that is, while still coupled in the train. This (...) (23 years ago, 20-Apr-01, to lugnet.trains)
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