How did they do this?

Having grown up in New Jersey and visited a few cement plant locations on the Lackawanna, Leigh & New England, Leigh & Hudson River, and the Lehigh Valley, I must admit that I always saw the loaded 70 ton cement covered hoppers being unloaded into a trough of some sort. The trough had a conveyer arrangement that carried the Leigh Portland Cement upwards and into the concrete making equipment. I never saw a place that unloaded the covered hoppers into trucks of any kind.

Chester I put up a few links in the 2 rail thread.

Chester,

I'm not sure what you are asking. If it's how raw material is brought to a cement plant, then Hot Water's description is accurate. In an earlier time frame boxcars may have been used with blocking boards over the doors for raw material (similar to how grain was carried), or in some cases open hoppers for limestone and clay, since it would have been fired and dried during the cement making process.

If you're asking about finished cement going out, again covered hoppers carried bulk cement, boxcars carried bagged cement. Some roads like the NYC, LV and DLW used cement 'bottles', which were pneumatically loaded with cement, then placed into gondolas for transport to cities. In NY city for example, the bottles were then loaded on barges to cross the river, then trucked to city construction sites.

Over time, finished cement product started being loaded into truck bulk carriers, which appears to be the predominant method today.

They also unload bulk cement into silos.

Thanks for your replies guys. By the sound of all the replies, it sounds like I'll have to change my plans. I have a NYC cement hopper kit by Funaro & Camerlengo that I was going to use for delivery.

N&W Chris, thanks for the links. Looks like I'll have to get that book.

I'll keep everybody posted on the results.

Chester

It seems to me that the NYC Historical Society's "Headlight" had an article a few issues back that included a picture from the 1960's of NYC covered hoppers that carried cement and were being unloaded directly into trucks somehow??