Covered Hoppers

nw-mailing-list at nwhs.org nw-mailing-list at nwhs.org
Mon Mar 20 14:59:39 EST 2006


Ironton, OH had an Alpha Portland Cement plant that shipped daily from March thru November of up to 15 cars on some days. It took a good pool to keep things moving daily. The lost of business was directly resulting from "time" not rates. Hwy building would take 50 to 100+ truck loads per day to one pour with a need that took exactly so many loads per working hour. Rail freight was super low in comparison but the turn around time was not in keeping with the demand of customers. Recent bulk transfer terminaling has brought some traffic back.

The Ironton afternoon switch up the cement holler would see Texaco oil box cars from Port Arthur, TX going in, steel to Wayne Pump going in, SOHIO oil in box cars, going in and Cement coming out along with Nike Rocket Launchers coming out of Wayne Pump. The Nikes were the Cold Wars main missile defense for the entire nations' large cities and important military and industrial sites. Would go upstairs to look directly down into the open gons with the Nike loads of bright orange metal of the sets that were shipped daily. Alpha also shipped to a mix plant located next to our family's business that was not over 6 blocks from the Alpha plant and they also shipped via this spur to a burial vault plant only 3 blocks from the plant, that was 1/2 distance between us and the cement plant.

D T & I shipped daily from 15 miles out in the county to Columbus, OH to huge mix plants for the 40s, 50s and some 60s' era construction of modern Columbus. 10-20 loads per day were not uncommon. Once again the time for turn around saw this move over to trucks that would put 3 trucks (a car load) into Columbus within 3 hours of loading. And the driver unloaded directly into the customer's bins therefore eliminating a customer's labor costs. Interchanging such freight was basically the killer for this and most of the other lost freight. Point A to Point B by the same carrier could have stymied the tide for a large % of such losses.

Ultimately thru service will be worked out and millions of worthless truck trips shall be moved back, just so we can not lock down the country with constant gridlock around the cities.


----- Original Message -----
From: nw-mailing-list at nwhs.org
To: nw-mailing-list at nwhs.org
Sent: Sunday, March 19, 2006 9:59 PM
Subject: Re: Covered Hoppers


One source of covered hopper revenue that came on stream in that period was no doubt the Lone Star Cement Co. plant at the end of the Cloverdale Branch. As I recall, it opened somewhere around 1951-52. Even in those pre-contract, ICC days, the railroad apparently somehow got a lock on outbound traffic and all cement had to move out by rail.

In my time down there (1960s,) the railroad operated two locals per day from Roanoke to Cloverdale (a daylight and an afternoon job,) and they each came out with upwards of 40 cars. Given transit time and turn-around time, you can see how that level of traffic could easily require a thousand or more cars.

It seems that when the agreed-upon period of "all outbound product by rail" was over, the railroad's outbound business from Lone Star went down to virtually nothing. Was it service, or rates, or both...?

One of the nastiest spills I ever took as a trainman was one night coming off the Cloverdale Branch. As the flagman, it was my job to close the branch switch and register us "off the branch" on the train register. It was a beautifully moonlit, hot Summer night and there had been a heavy rain earlier in the day. As the train pulled slowly past the switch and register box, I waved a stop signal to the head end with my lantern and "alighted" onto what appeared, in the moonlight, to be just black dirt. But it was a huge mud slick of that putrid-smelling ooze. Both feet went out from under me and I took a painful landing directly on my derriere with a concussion sufficient to turn one's backbone into shards and fragments. I have never seen so many stars in my life. Then I discovered that the viscous mud had me virtually glued to the ground. Fortunately we were on the way home, as I don't think I could have endured working an entire tour of duty coverd with that vile, stinking stuff !

-- abram burnett


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