Interesting freight loading and unloading

There is a gypsum loading operation outside of Duncan, Oklahoma. Trucks bring gypsum dug from a pit to a rail loading facility nearby. A truck is shown leaving the unloading shed. The trucks dump the mineral into a hopper that feeds a conveyor for filling rail cars. Usually covered and uncovered hopper cars are used. Blocks of about five cars are spotted under the conveyor using a cable winch shown by the arrow. The cable runs from the winch to a pulley next to the rail that directs it along side of the block of cars where it is hooked somewhere on the end of the last car in the block.



The pulley in the dirt along side the tracks.

Each block of cars is brought up to be hooked to the cable at the conveyor for filling and later moved out into the yard using the "switching locomotive". This is a Caterpillar front end loader that shoves them. They pull up along side the block of cars and find a place to push with the edge of the blade, usually a rib on the side of one of the cars. The arrow points to what kind of damage this inflicts.

 

In Rosenberg there is a chicken feed trans-loading facility. Hoppers are spotted over a conveyor that loads truck trailers. Usually they spot the hopper cars with the tractor from the trailer rig using a chain.

 

It is kind of a shoe-string operation so I doubt they would invest that. The way they operate the front end loader runs back and forth on the dirt to clear one block of cars after loading and then grab a new block of cars to load. If it were on the rails, it would have to constantly leave the rails to get around one block of cars to get to the next and then get back on the rails. There is no passing siding for it. So they just beat cars up to be the most efficient. Now if cars still had polling pockets........

 

At the Port of Catoosa, Oklahoma. Not positive but I think they are loading grain onto barges that was offloaded from the covered hoppers instead of the other way around. Maybe dalebaker would know.