# Question about Hoppers



## JoeG (Feb 3, 2013)

To all, 

This might/is an amateur question. I have a bunch of hoppers that someone gave me. However, I am not sure what I can use them for. The industries that I have on my layout are as follows.

1. Quarry 
2. Lumber Yard 
3. Grocery Warehouse 
4. Oil Company 
5. Army Base 
6. Whisky Plant 

Is there any industry I can use them for or should I just have them as extra cars?

Thank you for your help
JoeG


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## Fire21 (Mar 9, 2014)

Joe, I think it depends on what you consider to be a hopper. To me, they are carriers of loose material, such as grain, gravel, coal, etc. To me, hoppers have gates underneath to off-load the product. If what you've got have bottom discharge gates, then they'd fit perfectly into your quarry and whiskey sections, taking rock out and bringing grain in.


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## JoeG (Feb 3, 2013)

Fire21 said:


> Joe, I think it depends on what you consider to be a hopper. To me, they are carriers of loose material, such as grain, gravel, coal, etc. To me, hoppers have gates underneath to off-load the product. If what you've got have bottom discharge gates, then they'd fit perfectly into your quarry and whiskey sections, taking rock out and bringing grain in.


Yes they are covered hoppers with gates on the bottom of them.


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## Fire21 (Mar 9, 2014)

Covered hoppers would be perfect for hauling grain to the whiskey plant...that'd keep the grain from being blown away. If you can remove the covers, that'd make them good for the quarry.


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## JoeG (Feb 3, 2013)

Fire21 said:


> Covered hoppers would be perfect for hauling grain to the whiskey plant...that'd keep the grain from being blown away. If you can remove the covers, that'd make them good for the quarry.


Ill have to see if I can take the tops off. I do want to have a way to fill the gondolas for the mine from the top side of the cars


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## redman88 (Nov 25, 2015)

Your query could also produce frac sand those get transported in covered hoppers that have the gates on the bottom. 

I have google map images of the offload point of two sand plants in my area. If you want to see the prototype.


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## JoeG (Feb 3, 2013)

redman88 said:


> Your query could also produce frac sand those get transported in covered hoppers that have the gates on the bottom.
> 
> I have google map images of the offload point of two sand plants in my area. If you want to see the prototype.


Im sure it can be a frac sand quarry, I was trying to add a picture attachment but it wont let me, if you have pictures Id like to see them.


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## redman88 (Nov 25, 2015)

And the second plant. No storage here just straight from the rail to the road.


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## JoeG (Feb 3, 2013)

Very cool Redman. That looks like it will work


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## redman88 (Nov 25, 2015)

Can't wait till the oil field pick back up to see these yards in full swing. They have both been put in in the last three years. They are 60 miles apart off the same highway.


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## redman88 (Nov 25, 2015)

We also have potash mines that use the covered hopers.


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## JoeG (Feb 3, 2013)

I like the idea of frac sand industry, especially when i have an oil company as another industry. Thanks for your help.


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## DonR (Oct 18, 2012)

I built a sand and gravel service for my lumber yard.
A short stub trestle will hold one or two hoppers
to drop into pits below.

If you have a loco service area, build a sand pit
serviced by a hopper.
Locos use it to aid in traction.

Don


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## CTValleyRR (Jul 26, 2014)

Sand, clay, kaolin, and potash from a quarry would all be carried in covered hoppers.

Your distilling plant could get grain, hops, malt, etc. in covered hoppers.

Just some ideas.


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## JoeG (Feb 3, 2013)

DonR said:


> I built a sand and gravel service for my lumber yard.
> A short stub trestle will hold one or two hoppers
> to drop into pits below.
> 
> ...


How does sand and gravel play into a lumber yard?


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## JoeG (Feb 3, 2013)

CTValleyRR said:


> Sand, clay, kaolin, and potash from a quarry would all be carried in covered hoppers.
> 
> Your distilling plant could get grain, hops, malt, etc. in covered hoppers.
> 
> Just some ideas.


I like those ideas!!!


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## DonR (Oct 18, 2012)

JoeG said:


> How does sand and gravel play into a lumber yard?


It's a very large business that sells to construction
companies just as they sell lumber and hardware.
You might say Home Depot on Steroids. Anyway,
it was an excuse to build a small trestle and provide
another car drop for my switching sessions.

Don


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## CTValleyRR (Jul 26, 2014)

JoeG said:


> How does sand and gravel play into a lumber yard?


My local lumberyard, actually a "Hardware and Farm Supply Store", carries both in bulk. While they probably don't deal in quantities that would require hopper car loads, you certainly could pretend they do for the sake of your layout.


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## JoeG (Feb 3, 2013)

DonR said:


> It's a very large business that sells to construction
> companies just as they sell lumber and hardware.
> You might say Home Depot on Steroids. Anyway,
> it was an excuse to build a small trestle and provide
> ...


Sounds like a great excuse to me!!


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## JoeG (Feb 3, 2013)

CTValleyRR said:


> My local lumberyard, actually a "Hardware and Farm Supply Store", carries both in bulk. While they probably don't deal in quantities that would require hopper car loads, you certainly could pretend they do for the sake of your layout.


Yes, I like the idea of having a bulk supply store that hold a few different commodities.


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## cv_acr (Oct 28, 2011)

JoeG said:


> Ill have to see if I can take the tops off. I do want to have a way to fill the gondolas for the mine from the top side of the cars


Open hoppers and covered hoppers are generally constructed quite differently, and naturally are used for different things. (And it gets even more specific from there.)

All hoppers carry bulk materials.

Materials such as gravel, crushed stone, coal and ores that do not need protection from the elements can be carried in open cars.

Other bulk materials such as grain and other foodstuffs, fertilizers, salt, cement, dry chemicals, etc. will be shipped in covered hoppers.

Cars might be dedicated to certain types or classes of commodities. Smaller cars are used for heavier, denser materials (e.g. salt, sand, cement in 2-bay cars) as the product would reach maximum load weight long before filling up the car. (Although sometimes older cars will be downgraded into such service - even if they won't be completely filled, it could be more economical in some cases than building new cars.) Grains, fertilizers and many other chemical products are shipped in standard 3-bay cars. Note that certain loads are easily contaminated, and conversely certain loads will easily contaminate a car, so often certain cars will end up dedicated to certain commodities. (You would not switch between grain and cement loads in the same car for example.)

Also some types of covered hoppers have specialized unloading equipment. Fine powdered products like flour or cement are often shipped in cars with special fittings for unloading using pressurized air. Plastic pellets are often handled in cars with pneumatic outlets that basically allow the contents to be vacuumed out.

Open hoppers for ballast service often have special outlets that allow the rock to be dumped either to the side or between the rails.

On the model railroad, much of this is more theoretical, as we're not actually hauling real stuff around, so you can get away with a lot more, but you can also very easily bring up your realism a notch simply by paying a little bit of attention to what types of cars are sent to particular industries.

Your quarry and mine would get open cars (these could possibly be reused). Your whisky plant might get grains in standard 3-bay hopper cars. (There's also a byproduct called "dried distillers grains" DDG that might occasionally be shipped *out* in covered hopper if produced in enough quantities.)


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## Gramps (Feb 28, 2016)

Thank you cv acr, that's a good explanation.


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## JoeG (Feb 3, 2013)

cv_acr said:


> Open hoppers and covered hoppers are generally constructed quite differently, and naturally are used for different things. (And it gets even more specific from there.)
> 
> All hoppers carry bulk materials.
> 
> ...


Thank you for that information, it was very helpful, does the "PLATE" letter A,B,C,D etc. have anything to do with what they haul? I see this on a lot of them but I don't know what it means.


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## cv_acr (Oct 28, 2011)

JoeG said:


> Thank you for that information, it was very helpful, does the "PLATE" letter A,B,C,D etc. have anything to do with what they haul? I see this on a lot of them but I don't know what it means.


Those correspond to AAR clearance diagrams. Taller/wider cars may exceed the limits of certain clearance "plates". Cars that exceed the dimensions of a specific clearance plate will be marked as such as they could be limited from certain tracks with restricted clearances.

http://www.icrr.net/plates.htm


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## JoeG (Feb 3, 2013)

cv_acr said:


> Those correspond to AAR clearance diagrams. Taller/wider cars may exceed the limits of certain clearance "plates". Cars that exceed the dimensions of a specific clearance plate will be marked as such as they could be limited from certain tracks with restricted clearances.
> 
> http://www.icrr.net/plates.htm


That is awesome, thank you so much for that!!! I am building my hopper car and making decals for my whisky plant and was looking at all the safety markings, the plate one threw me for a loop.


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## dave1905 (Jul 7, 2013)

*Covered hoppers*

All covered hoppers are not the same. You won't use a car designed to carry plastic pellets to load grain and or frac sand and you won't use a car designed to carry frac sand to carry grain or plastic pellets.

To serve a quarry you would use hoppers (70-100 ton twin or Ortner type) and gons (52-65 ft mill).
To serve a frac sand plant you need 100 ton, two bay covered hoppers with trough hatches and sliding gates bottom outlets. 
To serve a grain move you need 3 or 4 bay covered hoppers with trough hatches and sliding gate bottom outlets.
To serve a plastics plant you need large 4 bay covered hoppers with round hatch and pneumatic bottom outlets.


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## JoeG (Feb 3, 2013)

dave1905 said:


> All covered hoppers are not the same. You won't use a car designed to carry plastic pellets to load grain and or frac sand and you won't use a car designed to carry frac sand to carry grain or plastic pellets.
> 
> To serve a quarry you would use hoppers (70-100 ton twin or Ortner type) and gons (52-65 ft mill).
> To serve a frac sand plant you need 100 ton, two bay covered hoppers with trough hatches and sliding gates bottom outlets.
> ...


Is the number of gates related to the weight of the product? Hence the product specific information you provided above?


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## cv_acr (Oct 28, 2011)

JoeG said:


> Is the number of gates related to the weight of the product? Hence the product specific information you provided above?


The SIZE (cubic feet capacity) is... but larger cars naturally have more outlet bays than smaller shorter cars.

e.g. 100 tons of sand is much less material (by volume) than 100 tons of grain, so you can use a much smaller car.


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## JoeG (Feb 3, 2013)

cv_acr said:


> The SIZE (cubic feet capacity) is... but larger cars naturally have more outlet bays than smaller shorter cars.
> 
> e.g. 100 tons of sand is much less material (by volume) than 100 tons of grain, so you can use a much smaller car.


Thanks for your help!!


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## redman88 (Nov 25, 2015)

Saw this on our company site.


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## JoeG (Feb 3, 2013)

redman88 said:


> Saw this on our company site.


Thats pretty cool, thanks for the help and information. Do you work for a frac sand company?


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## redman88 (Nov 25, 2015)

i work on frac equipment. for an oil field service company.


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## JoeG (Feb 3, 2013)

redman88 said:


> i work on frac equipment. for an oil field service company.


Ok thats awesome. Thanks for your help.


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