Basic operations question

[Ralph]

Are there situations in which a car might be moved by a train from one industry to another w/o it being sent to a freight yard first? For example...is it prototypical that a gondola loaded with scrap metal might be picked up at a scrap business and then be directly set out at a steel mill?

[jwb]

I don't think you can rule anything out. I heard a presentation by a manager at the Ohio Central who said they were making money by moving cars between industries within sight of each other. It wouldn't be "the usual", and the guy was certainly implying that this was unusual, but it happens, and I would guess especially in the steel industry. You've mentioned that you don't use bottle cars, but one typical steel move would be bottle cars from the blast furnace to a rolling (or whatever) mill -- I think the bottle cars can retain their heat for 24 hours, and the move is usually direct, sometimes across cities like Youngstown or Chicago. Same would apply to slag cars moving from a furnace to a dump. Or for that matter scrap cars from a scrap yard to a furnace, though from what I've seen, scrap cars come from a distance and are left at a yard near the mill, where they're then switched to the unloading area.

So I wouldn't rule anything out, especially where a common carrier like the EJ&E or Union RR does switching for a mill.

[Ralph]

Thanks John,

I think that its not "the usual" answers my question about typical practice. On my layout it would be an easy move to pull some scrap gons from Sal's Salvage and drop the loads off at KP Steel, but I didn't think that would be a typical way this work would be handled. Instead, it seems the gons would go to Williams Yard in Kings Port and then later be sent to KP Steel as part of the local "Steel Job".

Since I don't have an actual Williams Yard and only represent it by hidden track I can't model this transition...but I can run the local "off layout" and into the "Yard" where it is presumed to be broken down, the cars sorted, and later assigned to other trains. I reality, moves like this would tend to be the last of a session and then I'd prepare future trains for the next session by hand. This way I'd start the next session with something like the "Steel Job" that would deliver those gons to the steel mill complex.

Thanks again for the thoughts!

[Charlie B]

For years the scrap we handled went directly to a scrap yard to be bailed and returned to another plant of the same mill to be remelted. Someone in Atlanta thought the cars should be weighed so they had to start taking them to Conway, another 30 miles one way, twice, once from us and then again after the cars were loaded with bales.
So if you need an excuse to move cars for no apparent reason, there is a prototype for that. By the way, there are scales at the scrap yard.
Charlie

[Ralph]

Nice! Thanks Charlie!

[Green_Elite_Cab]

The closest thing I can think of is still a Steel Mill. Conrail used to run "bottle trains" of molten metal between steel mill sites that were not immediately adjacent to each other. I need to dig up where I read about it, but the train definitely needed to go down the line quite a bit.

[Tyson Rayles]

Out this way they moved pulpwood from the pulpwood yards to the paper mill and back. They were in slave service and never saw RR yard. When I lived in Fla. on the FEC they also had cars in slave service between several rock quarries and a cement plant. The gravel cars were weighted at the cement plant, guess they didn't trust the rock quarries to give them an honest weight? I'm sure there are plenty more examples as well. I would take your scrap straight to the mill and put it on a scale track. Your mill doesn't have a scale track? Great, another modeling project!

[dave1905]

There is probably an example of everything. Having said that, that is not the typical movement pattern. Most cases the shipment moves over 100 miles and so goes through at least one yard. I know of one example where a bag company sourced paper from a paper mill within 5 miles of the plant. But that was the exception. More commonly the shipment goes hundreds of miles (mostly because truck is cheaper on a shorter distance).

[Charlie B]

A lot of times shipments are made by truck simply because the shipper does not want the responsibility of securing the load. With a trucker, the lading is placed where the driver wants it, and from then on it is the responsibility of the trucking company. Loads that can be shipped without securing them have a better shot at being handled by rail.
Charlie

[Brakie]

Here's the rub..
Chessie served a scrap dealer in Huntington W.VA that shipped scrap steel to Armco Steel in Ashland Ky around 12 miles..Transit time 2 days only because the urban local terminated in the 8th St. yard in Huntington and the car had to be transfer to Russell...The customer finally turn to trucks..Transit time 1 1/2 hour for the round trip including unloading time.
Also remember there is no money in short hauls so,the railroads will their utmost discourage such business exception being cash starved short lines.