Coal Rotary Dumper

[coalburner]

Here is a pic of our old rotary dumper

[Lashlander]

Cool, uhh Hows it work?:confused:

[Countryboy]

Cool, uhh Hows it work?:confused:

It dumps the railcars loaded with coal. :yup

Coalburner, what kinda cars yall got? Gondolas or hoppers?

[Lashlander]

I kinda figured that, but don't the cars have bottom dumps? If they do, why is it called a rotary dumper?

[Countryboy]

If the car is a gondola then it has no doors on the bottom. They are usually dug out with a Herzog Cartopper, a backhoe with special attachments, or flipped upside down by one of the car rotators. Thats why I was asking what kind of cars they use. :)

[Lashlander]

I was wondering if that circle in the photo rolled the whole car over.

A couple months ago the Coast Guard found a old abandoned Russian barge floating around off the coast so they went and got it and brought it to our dock. They wanted to take it out and sink it in deep water so we had to clean it out. It had about 20 yards of coal in it. We took the crane and set the 580 in it and skip boxed it out.

[Countryboy]

I was wondering if that circle in the photo rolled the whole car over.

Yes, it flips the whole car over. Heres one in action:
3254

A couple months ago the Coast Guard found a old abandoned Russian barge floating around off the coast so they went and got it and brought it to our dock. They wanted to take it out and sink it in deep water so we had to clean it out. It had about 20 yards of coal in it. We took the crane and set the 580 in it and skip boxed it out.

and you still have the coolest job...:yup

On edit:Oops forgot to post the link (http://www.rti.ca/dumper.htm).

[Lashlander]

Ahh, there you go. A pics worth a thousand words. Thats pretty cool, I still don't know, like I said ,you get to play with trains.
Sorry coalburner, didn't mean to totally take over your post. Good topic!

Good link, I was gonna ask if you had to unhook each car.

[Electra_Glide]

Good link, I was gonna ask if you had to unhook each car.

Most coal gondolas are equipped with rotary couplers on one end of the car so that they do not need to be uncoupled to be unloaded.

Don't know about Coalburner's setup, but the dumpers are usually located on "balloon" tracks (basically a big loop) so that a loaded train pulls straight through the dumper, each car is dumped, and the empty train heads back out in the opposite direction.

Joe

[coalburner]

Electra_Glide

We do have a loop for 121 cars (and plans for enlarging it for 150 car sets). We have a dumper and positioner. The train crew spots the first 3 cars and then we get control of the train and the engineer puts the train to sleep. We use a BNSF unit train that actually has old steel cars, brand new cars, rapid discharge cars, old bottom dumps, tall cars, short cars, I don't think there are three in a row that are the same:) but they all have rotary couplers. The picture shows a big hopper before the dumper and an open platen on the dumper. This option is for limestone in bottom dump cars, we have never used that option. How ever with the length of grizzle and hoppers we are capable of dumping rapid discharge cars. I got a company that is going to set up the electrical clad system for RD cars and maybe BNSF can get me a complete unit train of RD cars for a test. We can unload rail cars at 3200 TPH , with a little work on the belts and telescoping chute we can up that to 4000 TPH with RD cars.

[Countryboy]

You need something like this (http://www.herzogcompanies.com/rrservices/plus.php) except made to haul and dump coal. :yup

We load this train twice a week during the winter.

[coalburner]

It's the 48,300 empty weight of aluminum cars that excites me, Ballast cars are heavy empty.:)

[Countryboy]

Well we got some of them ex-coal cars that we load rock on. Real long with 4 doors.....I'm sure you know what I'm talking about :yup . Yall probably fill um up to the top with coal, after all, thats what they were made for. We have to load them with rock though and all you do is put a small pile on each end then its loaded. All that space is the middle is empty. Makes for alot of wasted room on our tracks :nono .

Aluminum cars would be mice with the extra payload but I don't think they would hold up to the rock.

[coalburner]

Countryboy,
I got a little country in me to. My toys at home.:) Yep that metal building is home.

[Countryboy]

Nice stuff. :thumbsup

I could do alot with that tractor, the Gator too for that matter. :yup

You use them around the farm?

[coalburner]

Got this place two years ago, been spraying and getting it ready for some hay.

[murray83]

Since we're talking trains and how they unload them thought I'd post a link to the union I work with part time on how they do it at the potash terminal.

http://ilalocal273.com/06.html

Wish I had better pictures of my own to post one of these days I'll get that digital camera lol.

[Grader4me]

Wish I had better pictures of my own to post one of these days I'll get that digital camera lol.


Geez Murray...I would have thought that the last company you worked for would have given you a digital camera...as a Christmas bonus or something :wink2

[murray83]

Irving? yeah right,in those 2 years they gave me a hat and plenty of grief :bouncegri :rolleyes: Though I'm not much of a computer person,I doubt I could use it correctly anyways lol.

[Grader4me]

Irving? yeah right,in those 2 years they gave me a hat and plenty of grief :bouncegri :rolleyes:


:bouncegri Thought that would spark ya a bit :yup Have a good one...sorry to highjack this thread

[murray83]

Oh thats nothing,theres a Dynapac roller for Gulf with a huge ready john logo on its rear end and a new Cat 345CL with a "nothing runs like a Deere" sticker on her out at Canaport :wink2 I left my mark.

[coalburner]

Today

[Lashlander]

Nice pics. Are those cars aluminum? Where's all your snow? :bouncegri

[coalburner]

No snow here:)

That unit set in the pic wasn't our normal one. It was a nice one though I'm guessing less than 6 months old.

[Steve Frazier]

So the couplers swivel? I wasn't aware of that! Are the cars each strapped to the turntable? If not, what keeps them from sliding off the table? This is a very interesting thread but has raised a lot of questions for me!

[06bowtie_guy]

Cool pics. We have a rotory dump at our smelter. (nickel mine) All the muck goes up and is dumped into rail cars at the different local mine sites. It's then brought to the mill and they can turn 2 cars at a time. Pretty cool. :thumbsup

[Countryboy]

So the couplers swivel? I wasn't aware of that! Are the cars each strapped to the turntable? If not, what keeps them from sliding off the table? This is a very interesting thread but has raised a lot of questions for me!

Yes, the couplers swivel. Not all types of cars have couplers that swivel though. The ones we load at the quarry do not swivel because they are dumped from the bottom.

As for the hold downs, in the picture I posted there are 2 large arms on each side of the car that grab on to the top of the sides and hold it to the track.
I've seen a few other setups but don't have pictures.

Coalburner, whats the max weight that dumper will dump? Most rock hoppers will max out at 143 tons gross weight but I know coal is lighter. Would it dump a 143 ton rock car?

[coalburner]

Yes the cars are 286000 gross. I will try and get pic of the hydraulic cylinder and car clamp. We have on that the seal is leaking on so we will be pulling it soon.

[deeredriver]

Yes, the couplers swivel. Not all types of cars have couplers that swivel though. The ones we load at the quarry do not swivel because they are dumped from the bottom.

As for the hold downs, in the picture I posted there are 2 large arms on each side of the car that grab on to the top of the sides and hold it to the track.
I've seen a few other setups but don't have pictures.

Coalburner, whats the max weight that dumper will dump? Most rock hoppers will max out at 143 tons gross weight but I know coal is lighter. Would it dump a 143 ton rock car?

Not all couplers are rotary. The coal cars have 1 rotary coupler on them. Looking at the side on the car, and one end will be painted some color. That is the rotary coupler end. The cars must be matched up correctly or it is drawbar changing time!

[mattyjc]

This rotary way looks a load more intresting than the bottom opening wagons we use in the UK! I unload trains with 25 wagons (cars) and that holds approx 1700 tonnes of coal per train. Takes about an hour to unload. lot of walking up and down though!

Regards

Matt

[alan627b]

When I worked at our coal plant, I was told that one of the cars had been set into the train backward, and when it was unloaded, the coupler assembly was twisted off of the car. Oops.
alan627b

[srs_mn]

Here's a short video of a railroad car dumper with rotary couplers in action... I had to watch it a couple times to really get a sense of what was happening - pretty impressive.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WhdtZJauNvE

[Railwayman]

When I worked at our coal plant, I was told that one of the cars had been set into the train backward, and when it was unloaded, the coupler assembly was twisted off of the car. Oops.
alan627b

Often the cars are arranged both ways in a train. As long as there is at least ONE rotary coupler between every pair of cars, no problem -- it doesn't matter whether the rotary coupler is on the car being rotated, or the car outside of the dumper. In each trainset there is typically one car that has a rotary coupler on each end, and it's supposed to be placed into the train between all the cars pointing one way, and all the cars pointing the other way, so the trainset can go through the rotary dumper without having to be uncoupled between two cars that are back-to-back standard couplers. The rotary-coupler end of the car is painted with a bright color band; the double-rotary car has the bright color band on both ends.

RWM

[AtlasRob]

Often the cars are arranged both ways in a train. As long as there is at least ONE rotary coupler between every pair of cars, no problem -- it doesn't matter whether the rotary coupler is on the car being rotated, or the car outside of the dumper. In each trainset there is typically one car that has a rotary coupler on each end, and it's supposed to be placed into the train between all the cars pointing one way, and all the cars pointing the other way, so the trainset can go through the rotary dumper without having to be uncoupled between two cars that are back-to-back standard couplers. The rotary-coupler end of the car is painted with a bright color band; the double-rotary car has the bright color band on both ends.

RWM

This is making my head spin :notworthy I thought a train was a train :o as with most things in life, its amazin what we dont know :thumbsup thanks for the insight into another life.

Ha ha, re read and saw the pun ( spin) sorry :Pointhead

[YankeeFlasher]

Car is placed on rotary section,
side walls move in and clamp car in place
Circular part rotate to upside down position
Everything is dumped in hopper beneath
Rotary continues to original upright position
Next car is pushed on to rotary section

Main issue is that the car is full-plus and can be more quickly dumped than
through a bottom door chute system, and everything comes out - no bridging in the door...pretty neat the first time you see it.

Tom

[Railwayman]

Though the rotary dumper is faster than the old manual doors, it is much slower than rapid-discharge. A single-car rotary dumper peaks at 4,000 tons/hour, or about 32 cars/hour -- five hours to empty a 150-car train. A tandem (two-car) rotary peaks at 6,000 tons/hour -- 2.5 hours to empty a 150-car train. The same train if it uses rapid-discharge cars can empty in 30-40 minutes. Rotary dumpers are expensive, have to be maintained, and there are ways to damage them, whereas rapid-discharge is fairly foolproof. The drawback to rapid-discharge is the cars weigh about 4,000 lbs. more, which means every round trip made by a 150-car train it hauls 300 less tons of coal -- but you're still paying the railroad the same transportation charge. Rapid-discharge cars cost more to purchase, too.

RWM