Hello Marklin forum members!
I have been reading this website for a long time (years!) and I guess it is about time I join. [:o)] I have learned alot here about all aspects European railroading both miniture and full-size.

Here's my opening question for the panel of experts here:

How are gondolas unloaded? I'm talking about the most basic types like Marklin's 4601, 4604, or 4639. AFAIK these cars do not have hydraulic rams that would enable them to tip like a dump truck. So I have often wondered when I look at old pictures of gondola unit trains loaded with coal, "how do you unload a trainload of coal when using these cars?".

In Norfolk, Virgina I saw a rotary dumper that turned an entire gondola upside down in order to dump the coal which was then tranferred to a ship. Was something like this used? It doesn't seem like the european gondolas, especially the wood ones, are built stout enough for a rotary dumper...

Thanks,

Welcome Marty.

To be honest, I always throught it was "The Armstrong Method"
Similar to the way Kiwi's used to do it at least thru to the late '60 - '70's AFAIK

Cheers
Tony

ps: And given the coupling method the rotary system would be a real pain

50-75 gondolas full of coal is alot of shovelling... ...and alot of time unless you have big crew content to do nothing but shovel all day.

By the way, the rotary dumper I mentioned was really quite the operation:

Fully loaded cars were qued up at the bottom of a ramp, and one by one they were towed up to the dumper using a cable. After unloading, the car was rotated right side up again, and then allowed to roll down a ramp to the large storage yard. The cars are banging into each other with a "boom" all day long.

Ray is quite correct, most unloading of gondolas was done by hand.
EXCEPT -
Many gondolas had doors in the floor that could be opened (in the US and UK), though I have not seen any European models with this feature.
Many gondolas had end doors (the complete end was hinged at the top) so when the wagon was tipped (lifted at one end by crane) the load would slide out the other end. I think some of my Marklin gondolas have end doors, but I cannot put my hands on them right now.
Also, there was often a pneumatic method available at some depots (giant suction type) to extract some loads.
regards

Welcome to the forum, Marty.

My company is in the refuse/recycling industry and we currently ship 600-700 tons daily of construction and demolition debris from Connecticut to landfills in New York and Ohio. Whenever possible we prefer tipper equipped destinations because they reduce turn-around time and are much kinder to our gondolas. The alternative is to dig the material out of the car with a bucket loader which causes considerable damage over time. Also, this "old" method typically leaves several tons of material in the car.

Most of our 200 cars are 5500cf capacity which translates to 90-100 tons of material. Trucking the same volume would require 4-5 100 cubic yard trailers. Daily outbound carloads number an average of 6. Turnaround time (from our tracks to landfill and back) averages a little under 3 weeks.

Here is a photo of a state-of-the art three-car tipper. Notice that the car ends have no role to play - all gripping is from the sides.



At our "yard" we have recently invested in a car mover that has replaced some rather primitive DIY methodology. She is called a TrackMobile and looks like this (the file is *.gif - hope it translates):



As you know, tractive power is a function of weight which is applied in an innovative fashion with this machine. Notice the pair of steel wheels at the front. There is a hydraulic lift that fits under the car and gains the necessary weight by lifting the car thus gaining the required tractive weight from the car. A real case of necessity being the mother of invention - while certainly not inexpensive, it is far less expensive to buy, operate and maintain than a switcher.

I seem to recall some sort of 'dog' that was pulled by a cable, which drew the gondola up a steep slope in order to get the gondola high enough to tip its contents onto a conveyor. Cant remember if it was done one at a time or if 2 or three were done at a time...

Soren, those are great photos!!! You should put together an article for Model Railroader magazine (if management would allow). MR is always looking for articles on modern track side industries. I learn something every time I get on this site.

It seems reasonable to suppose that manual unloading was the most common method up to about 1960. Larger operations would have used a crane with a clamshell bucket, but even this would be bound to leave several hundred kilograms of material in the corners of the car which would have to be shovelled out by hand (and also gradually cause damage to the cars).

Tipping cars like class El-u 061 were introduced in about 1960, but there never were more than a few hundred of them - less than 1% of the total number of gondolas in service, although El-u 061 is the prototype for the well-known Märklin 4430 and 4431:



And while I hesitate to contaminate the forum with pictures of non-Märklin models, here's an image of the Liliput model of the same car which illustrates the tipping action (absent from the Märklin version):

Per.

Yes, very nice indeed - thanks, Per!

Hi Dr.D,
The Marklin gondolas that I refer to in my initial post are of a typical western European design that were used in Germany, Holland, Belgium, etc.
I don't know the exact dates these types were in service, but I have seen this type hauling coal in WWII-era photos right through the '60's (at least).

I think the majority of German steam loks were manually fed coal burners; but there were exceptions, of course: oil burners, and stoker-fed coal burners. Another discussion topic should be created if you want to go into detail about this.

In the USA, rotary dumpers are not that unusual, but I haven't seen any pictures of something like this in Europe.

Here's a scan of Bertold Langer's model from the MIBA-Spezial article mentioned above:



And here's a scan (apologies for the poor quality) of a photo of a prototype tipper (from p 6 of Gerd Wolff, Die offenen Güterwagen der Regelbauart, EK-Verlag 1991):

Great photos Mark.
Thanks. I'm gettin an idea here

Marty thanks once again for bringing this topic up

Never seen it before! Thanks for the pictures, Ladislas.

Marty,
Yes I had spotted that and my first reaction was the 2 rail operation ok but it will be a real pain for 3 rail....