scale wieght

I "pull" mine over to the postal scale and check the weight.   Since the next step is to add the weight, I figure I might as well have it off the tracks.

I want to build a hopper loading station and would love to have the car sitting on the scale as its getting loaded. I can then shut off the flow when the target weight is reached.

That sounds cool.

 

I'd look at something like a postal scale and hide it under the layout.  A piece of track that is not connected to the rest of the track would allow the car to "float" and be weighed.  You might have to figure some way to power the track and not affect the weight, I'd be thinking some ultra flexible wire braid.  If you find the right scale, you can remote the display so you can have it on a control panel.

That sounds like a great idea. If the scale comes with a remote digital readout or a usb cord, maybe it can be recalculated to create different parameters.

Dave

 

For prototypical correctness and for the sake of a home made model, weigh cars away from the loading point.  Weighting is usually done at the yard nearest to a cars point of origin.  Weighting while loading would make accuracy problematic and subject the scale to damage from impact loading and debris.

 

While bulk loads are billed by weight they are usually loaded by volume.  As you noticed earlier a 50, 70 or 100 ton hopper is sized to hold the right volume of its designed commodity.  A car designed for eastern bituminous coal will be a little smaller in volume than one designed for hauling the same weight of less dense sub-bituminous western coal.  Coke hoppers are higher volume still.  The same goes for covered hoppers.  Cement hoppers are smaller than grain hoppers which are not as large as those designed to haul dried distillers grain or plastic pellets.

 

Railway Prototype Cyclopedia Volume 12 has a good article on weighting freight cars if you are interested in learning more about transition era scales and supporting equipment.

Thanks Ted, for your knowledge on this subject. I thought I saw on Extreme Trains, a loading station where the operater would stop loading a car when it hit its max. weight. Some cars today are aluminum and can carry more weight, even though the volume size of the hopper is the same. What if a train is mixed with steel and aluminum cars? How does the person activating the loader know when to stop, if the car is not on a scale as it is being loaded?

Hi Dave,

 

The aluminum cars designed for a specific commodity carry a larger volume than their steel counterparts.  The weight difference is made up in extra commodity.  For instance, 100 ton aluminum bathtub coal gondolas carry a larger volume of coal than 100 ton steel coal hoppers.  You get more coal from point A to point B for the same gross weight and transport costs.  All the guy loading the car has to do is stop when the car's volume is filled.

I'm getting the picture, Ted and Dave. So is a aluminum hopper a bit deeper in order to fit the extra volume of coal, or do they just heap it up above the sides. I use to live next to a set of B&P tracks in Driftwood Pa., and once a week a soft coal train would come by pulling 130 hopper. Sometime the train would be all brand new aluminum fish belly cars that said TOP GON on them. They did not look any larger or heaped up any higher then the steel hoppers, but I would assume the fish belly allows room for the extra volume they can carry. Am I correct in my assumption? By the way, are you guys related?  

in the for what is worth column, I know you folks have nothing better to do, but consider a couple of things. When our trains come with air brakes that actually operate(I see it being a real bear connecting those glad hands), couplers attached to the frame of the car rather than the trucks, actual roller bearing trucks and you are willing to pay thousands for each car......................

Dave Hikel and Ted Hikel are brothers.

.....

Dennis

Hi Dave,

 

Yes, the shape of the bottom of the car accounts for the extra volume.  The "TOP GONS" are gondolas rather than hoppers.  They are emptied on rotary coal tipples so they don't have to have discharge chutes on the bottom of the car.  The belly of the car is flat without any hatches or chutes.

In the Us, they are refered to as Rotary Dumps.

think in England they are called wagon tipples.

Charlie is right.  They are called "rotary coal dumps".  I knew a guy who worked at one near here.

This was a fun read. Thanks guys, my curiosity got the best of me and the postage scale got broke out.....lol.  did the math and my german k5 needs to be upweighted to just under 4 pounds to be "scale weight" hahahaha.