THE COLLIERY GUARDIAN

AND

JOURNAL OF THE COAL AND IRON TRADES.

Vol. CXII.

FRIDAY, AUGUST 4, 1916.

No. 2901.

AMERICAN CAR DUMPERS.

(SPECIALLY CONTRIBUTED.)

American car dumpers built in accordance with the
most approved practice turn the car over sidewise. This
type of design dates from about 1900, so far as the lead-
ing builders of such machines are concerned. What was
perhaps the very first commercially successful dumper
in the United States was erected about 1891 for the
Lake Shore and Michigan Southern Railroad at Ashta-
bula, Ohio, a port on Lake Erie. The car was tipped
endwise. The Baltimore and Ohio Railroad also installed
a machine of this type at Fairport, Ohio, on Lake Erie.
The chief objection seems to have been that the cars had
to be of a special type, a limitation preventing its
general adoption, since the American railways use one

It t : 1:	:	'■

■

Fig. 1.—90-ton Coal Car.

Length inside, 45 ft. 6| in. Load 2,829 cubic feet = 180,000 lb.

another’s cars indiscriminately—an almost essential con-
dition of railroad operation where exceedingly long dis-
tances are involved.

Side dumpers were designed and installed at ports on
Lake Erie, but were small in comparison with the high
capacity dumpers of the last few years, the combined
weight of the cars and loads dealt with totalling only
about 40 tons. An effort was made to introduce a type
of machine in which the car, or pair of cars, entered a
cylindrical shell, where they were secured in position
relatively to the shell, and the whole rolled over, but
apparently all other designs have now given way, so far
as the three, leading builders are Concerned, to a side
dumping machine, which handles heavy loads at a rapid
rate.

The ports of Toledo, Sandusky, Cleveland, and Con-
neaut, on the southern coast of Lake Erie, are equipped
with dumpers comprising examples of all three prin-
cipal makes. The machines handle the large cars in use
—the 90-ton size*—(fig. 1) at the rate of 40 cars per
hour. These cars are used by the Norfolk and Western
Railway, and have a cubic capacity of 3,380 cu. ft.,
including a 30degs. heap at the top of the load. The
steel car, with its two 6-wheel trucks, weighs 65,2001b.,
so that the entire load to be handled by the dumper is
about 263,6001b. In fact, the machines are understood
to have been designed to handle a still larger car—of
100 tons capacity.

A car dumping plant on the Atlantic coast, and com-
prising two.machines, also handles the 90-ton N. and W.
car. This plant is part of the new steel pier erected by
the N. and W. R, R. at Hampton Roads recently, and
illustrates one of the several different uses for which car
dumpers are employed in the United States. At Hamp-
ton Roads, for example, the most modern pier of each
of the three coal roads having tide water terminals there
employs the car dumper (fig. 2) simply for the purpose
of getting the coal out of the regulation railroad car
into a special ear used on the pier, the former being
merely dumped without being elevated. The pier cars
in the case of the N. and W. R. R. have a coal capacity
of 220,000 lb.; consequently, when a dumper is handling
the ordinary railroad car, the loads of two or more are
required to fill the pier car. The deck of the N. and W.
pier is 90 ft. above the sea, and special elevators lift
the pier cars through the necessary vertical range.

* The 90 tons are “ short tons.” At the same time, the
heap on top of the main load increases it by up to about
10 per cent, excess.

The recent installations at Lake Erie ports, however,
must lift as well as- dump, as immediate delivery is
made by gravity to boats alongside. However, it is
quite customary in modem American plants to locate
the level at which the cradle receives the loaded car at
a level somewhat above the ordinary grade of the adja-
cent railway tracks. One object in view is to secure
gravity riddance of the empty car after it is brought
back to the level from which it started with the cradle.
Since the empty car is not discharged from the car
dumping tower when in an elevated position, some
means of getting the loaded car up to the level of the
bottom position of the cradle is an ordinary adjunct.



Even at Hampton Roads, in connection with the
N. and W. pier, where the overturning is done at a
constant level, the cradle has its bottom position at a
considerable elevation above the surrounding tracks
(fig- 2).

The typical method of getting the loaded car to the
cradle is by means of the “ barney ” or “ mule,” as may

Fig. 2.—Non-elevating Dumpers at Hampton Roads (Va.)

10

be seen in fig. 3. A typical barney is a small car
operated by cable on a narrow gauge lying between the
rails of the track on which the coal car moves. In the
ease of the N. and W. pier, the barney is operated
by two 225 horse-power motors. The narrow gauge
track runs down into a pit located at the beginning of
the incline which leads up to the cradle. Here.the barney
is below the track level. When a loaded car is sent over
the pit, the barney is operated to engage it at the rear.
In the case of one. of the dumpers, the elevation to which
the barney brings the loaded car is 15 ft., and
in the other case 22 ft.. The necessity for the
added 7 ft. in the latter case will be understood from the
following details. The car dumpers are located opposite

each other, but with an intermediate space of about
78 ft., occupied by three tracks for the pier cars, the
centre one being for empty pier cars returning from the
pier. The other tracks are for pier cars which have been
switched over to the dumpers to receive their loads and
prpceed to the pier elevators. The empty railway cars
discharged from the dumper run by gravity to a switch-
back which despatches them to the “empties” yard.
To enable the empty railway cars from the one dumper
to reach this switchback they must cross the three tracks
for pier cars located between the dumpers. The excess
elevation of 7 ft. provides for this crossing. At the new
dumper erected at Conneaut, the barney runs in a trench
between the rails of the approach track, and is provided
with a pivoted arm which rises when the barney moves
forward and drops when it recedes. The barney is
allowed to pass beneath a loaded car at the beginning of
the approach, whereupon, by operating it forward, the
arm is raised to engage the railway car at the rear. The
arm is counterbalanced on its pivot, and its rise and fall
are secured by a friction device located on the rear axle
of the barney. At Sandusky, the dumper, furnished by
a different concern, is provided with a reversing engine
with a tail rope, which enables the barney to be returned
quickly from cradle to the initial position. This, of
course, tends to promote the capacity of the dumper as
a whole.

These new dumpers on the Lake Erie ccast are pro-
vided with counterweights for the purpose of counter-
balancing the cradles or the like.

It should be noted that the improved American
dumper is not a tipple, the car being only turned through
an angle of, say, 150 to 160degs., and discharging the
coal instantly. This characteristic necessitates the apron
being fully capable of receiving and dealing with an
entire car load. It will be evident that where the load
runs up to 224,0001b., the apron must be an enormous
affair.

Let us now consider a particular case—the installation
at Conneaut (fig. 4), and trace in some detail the entire
cycle of movements from the departure of the loaded
railway car from the yard where loaded cars are stored
until the car is returned empty to the yard where
“ empties ” are stored.

It should be premised that the movement of coal over
the Great Lakes, particularly the water shipments from
Lake Erie ports to the north-west, is one of the largest
in America, and is chiefly a question of return freight
at exceedingly low rates. Moreover, since the entire
round trip of a Lake boat comprises a mileage of very
moderate amount, the length of time spent in port is a



very vital item, and, in order for a Lake boat to be able
to give a low rate, she must only be detained a short
time for loading. Briefly, the volume of business and
the necessities of the case combine to demand plants
on the shores of Lake Erie that can transfer from rail to
boat with great expedition. Still further, the plants now
being installed must take into account a 90-ton car in
existence and a 100-ton car in prospect.

Returning to the Conneaut plant, the yard of loaded
cars will have a dowm-grade track with a grade of about
IJdegs. on tangents and 1| on curves. The man who
rides the next ear to go forward loosens his brake, and
the. car drifts down to the foot of the steep incline up to
the dumper. The chief reason for the use of the elevated