This evening, I laid one piece of flex from the CB&Q crossing west on the Rock Island main. I then commenced is laying the remaining cork roadbed for both tracks of the entire RI main. It's looking good!!
I then worked for a few hours on the (second try) gauntlet track. This one turned out much nicer than the first one. Although, I still dislike building it. It's not an easy project. It is currently just the rail/pc board skeleton, but it seems to function well. I need to add wood ties to it and paint. I'll post photos when done.
Operations Question
Which leads to me to another situation. I can use the help of the blog readers out there on this one. I know Ottawa Silica definitely had their own scale track weighing the sand hoppers. Belrose Silica (the other mine I'm modeling) is located 7 miles west of Ottawa in Utica, IL. I can not see any indication of a scale track at this mine. This mine was a much smaller operation than Ottawa Silica. There is very little information online regarding this plant or the neighboring Philadelphia Quartz facility. Originally, I had planned on building two gauntlet tracks and having scales at each. A couple of issues with this. One, I don't want to build another gauntlet track. I'm done with that. Uggh. Two, the gauntlet track is pretty long. I could shorten it, but even so it's the length of two turnouts plus a car or two in the middle. Three, see #1.
So, as far as operations the Ottawa Local will have to weigh all sand and set out any that are over tonnage. How do you suggest the LaSalle local handle the sand? Much of the sand is going right across the tracks to the Philadelphia Quartz (PQ) plant. Crazy, I know. You would have thought a conveyor across the tracks would have been more economical. As far as I can tell, CSX still does the same thing today. So, what would you suggest for handling the sand hoppers from mine to plant (50 yards away)? I can think of two options. One, possibly the ROCK had an agreement to simply bill per car load with no regard to weight. This would still leave it open for damaged cars that would have to be setout to the RIP track and such, but not the variability of weights. Or two, the local takes the cars up to Ottawa to be weighed at Ottawa Silica's plant and return the next day to Philadelphia Quartz. That seems like a lot of work to move a car 50 yards, but this was the ROCK. Anything that made financial sense was off the table.
The CB&Q had Wedron Silica just to the north of Ottawa. It was a larger plant as well, but I can't tell if it has a scale track or not. I just looked at Belrose Silica again. There is a small shack to the left of the loading area. That may have been a scale track at one time. It could also be located under the loading area (possibly weighing as they fill up the car).
So, any input out there?
Photos of the progress.
Looking north from Ottawa Silica. Straight is the CB&Q crossing.
The diverging route to the left is the lead to Rock's Ottawa Yard.
Looking east from Ottawa Yard. CB&Q crossing is at located where the drill sits.
The diverging route to the right is the lead to Ottawa Silica and LOF.
Another view of the same showing the Ottawa Silica and LOF plants.
Steven if I follow you correctly, is it a possibility that the cars coming from Belrose can only be loaded half full so as to prevent damage to any car. You could simply state this.
ReplyDeleteIf so, this could possibly create twice the amount of cars needed to be moved since their only half full? This might be a game plan until you get things up and running and see what kind of traffic you'll wind up with?
Possibly. It boils down to the agreement between Belrose Silica and Philadelphia Quartz. Would PQ simply pay for a loaded hopper of sand or would they only pay for the actual amount of weight of sand? If actual weight, how should they be weighed.
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