On a frosty Monday morning deep in the Virginia mountains . . . on a chill, drizzly Tuesday in Kingsport, Tenn. . . . on the overcast forenoon of the same Tuesday in Cleveland, Tenn. . . . at all three places, on both days, the settings were very much alike: Men in topcoats stood about, looking on with the same anticipation common to horse-racing enthusiasts intent on judging a newcomer to the tracks. A newcomer that has done well in time trials and has now been entered in a race.
These were businessmen. Representatives of industries big and small whose products include man-made fibers and coal, cement and ready-mixed concrete.
Located on the Southern-controlled Interstate Railroad in 'Southwestern Virginia, the Stonega Coke and Coal company's Crossbrook Mine loading tipple forms a background for one of Southern's newest prototype freight cars -the "Big Dropper." The 228,OOO-plus pounds of coal in this shipment went to The Tennessee Eastman Company at Kingsport, Tenn., for one of a series of service tests that will help Southern's Test Department evaluate the "mechanical stamina" of the car. |
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In a sense, these men were indeed gambling.
They were betting that their experiences of loading and unloading two prototype additions to Southern Railway's "stable" of special-duty freight cars would win the "purse" of better, lower-cost rail transportation for themselves and their customers.
They were cooperating in service tests Southern's aluminum-bodied, drop-bottom gondola; known as the "Big Dropper," and a more recently developed car called the "Quad-pod" ( because it has four "pods," or tanks ) designed to carry bulk commodities like cement.
They were subjecting the prototypes to the same uncompromising demands that will be made on such equipment when Southern is satisfied that tests like these have revealed for correction all the possibilities for failure, and places such cars in regular service.
The whole process was neatly summed up by J. B. Gillis, traffic manager for the Tennessee Eastman Company at Kingsport, a division of The; Eastman Kodak Company of Rochester, N. Y. Commented Gillis during the test unloading of the "Big Dropper" ~t the Kingsport plant: "When a few people gamble and everybody wins, that's progress."
Southern's new prototype car, called the "Quad-pod" because of its four tanks, or pods, for carrying such bulk commodities as cement. The car has a 600-barrei capacity and is designed to unload in less than an hour, using compressed air. |
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Progress. . . . a word that has more meaning in today's competitive world than ever before.
It was in pursuit of progress that Stonega Coke & Coal Company at Stonega, Va., on the Interstate Railroad, test-loaded the "Big Dropper" at Crossbrook Mine No. 1 with coal for Tennessee Eastman. Stonega General Manager Harry Meador knew that such equipment carrying about 114 tons of coal per car would mean fewer cars to handle. This is an important factor in cutting costs in a business where the railroad is in effect the conveyor belt between mine and customer.
It was the wish for progress, too, that brought two other industries and the Southern Railway together for service tests of the "Quad-pod."
On top of Cleveland Ready-Mixed Concrete's bin, A. I. Shuping of Southern's Test Department. Cement is boosted up the pipe to empty through the top of the bin. |
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A. E. Stephens, manager of Cleveland Ready-Mixed Concrete Company, put it just that simply when asked why he had agreed to accept test delivery from the car.
"I like to see progress," he said vigorously.
The car was loaded at Knoxville, Tenn., by Volunteer Portland Cement Company, a division of Ideal Cement Company. The salesman for Volunteer who calls on Cleveland Ready-Mixed is V. A. Davis, and he too was on hand for the test unloading of his company's product into the customer's bin. "We have to be familiar with any sort of progress that enables us to serve our customers better and faster ," he explained.
The pursuit of progress, and the desire to serve customers "better and faster ."
These are the causes that aIso led Southern to develop its special-duty freight cars in the first place. The "all-door" box car, "Big John," the "Big Boy" tobacco-carrying box car, "Silversides" ...all of these cars are the consequence of Southern's determination to progress constantly toward better, lower-cost ways of serving its customers, of cutting shippers' total costs of transportation.
The loading conveyor carries a steady stream of coal into the "Big Dropper." In the background are Southern's "Silversides," designed for shipments to plants equipped with rotary dumpers. |
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The "Big Dropper" and the "Quad-pod" are among the latest expressions of this determination.
They are being tested and proven fit.
And the testing procedure is a rugged one. ,
Take as an example the "Big Dropper" used in the Stonega-Eastman service test. It was built some six months ago, and has already been slammed about with calculated ruthlessness extensive enough to simulate 20 years of normal service. Its "bomb-bay" doors, through which more than 100 tons of coal will discharge in less than 15 seconds, have been tested on opening under load and then closing no less than 2,000 times. While loaded with more than 100 tons of coal, the car has been subjected to 2,000 coupling impacts at speeds of up to 10 miles an hour.
These coupling and loading tests are conducted in shops and yards. They prove whether cars are properly designed to be tough enough and efficient enough to stand up under grueling day to-day service requirements. It's important, of course, to know what happens under such relatively controlled conditions as it is possible to achieve in shops and yards. By the same token, it's vital to know what happens -or fails to happen -while a car is hauling a customer's freight in actual service, when conditions cannot always be carefully controlled.
Southern has found that its customers are no less eager than the railway itself to put newly-designed cars through their paces under service conditions.
The "Quad-pod" during test unloading at Cleveland Ready-Mixed Concrete. Note the pipe running up the enclosed bucket-lift that is used to transfer cement into the bin from hopper cars. Compressed air, by contrast, blows the "Quad-pod's" load up the pipe, into the bin ; quickly, cleanly. |
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When the "Big Dropper" arrived at the Eastman plant in Kingsport, it was placed on an unloading track along with 11 conventional, old-style, coal carrying hopper cars. Those first 11 cars had to be battered empty with a car shaker that: slammed and shook the cars -straining every rivet and welded seam -before coal that had become solidly packed by rain and the motion of the cars while they were in transit could be fully discharged through hopper openings.
Then it was the "Big Dropper' turn to empty a 100-ton-plus load that was similarly packed.
At Cleveland Ready-Mixed, the "Quad-pod" was spotted over a conveyor screw used when cement is unloaded from hopper cars. Shifting hopper cars so that cement pours into the screw means four or five hours to unload 400 or 500 barrels. |
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The unloading pit built to accommodate older, smaller cars wasn't large enough to take the entire carload of coal at one time, so only the first two bays of the "Big Dropper" were placed over the pit opening. A compressed-air line was connected to fittings on the car, the levers controlling the doors on the first two bays were thrown. The doors snapped apart with a clang, the coal poured out through the full-width of the car-bottom opening.
Eastman Traffic Manager Gillis recalled the days when he worked for a railroad. His job: was to empty 50-ton coal gondolas. With a shovel. If anybody can appreciate that car," he said with feeling, "I can." You almost expected him to start rubbing his back, made sore just by remembering.
The "Quad-pod's" service test between Volunteer and Cleveland Ready-Mixed also shows how customer cooperation with Southern is pointing the way to savings in time and money through use of special-duty equipment, painstakingly developed.
Compressed air forced the 600-barrel load from the four pods with a clean efficiency that left less than a bucketful of cement in the car. The cement flowed through a serIes of pipes and hoses and was lifted some 60 feet into the air to be emptied into the bin.
It is estimated that when perfected, the "Quad-pod" will unload in less than an hour. The unloading time chalked up under test conditions at Cleveland Ready Mixed Concrete Company indicated that this is a realistic calculation. "Less than an hour" compares with the four or five hours it takes to unload 400 or 500 barrels of cement from standard covered hoppers. And the car will be of even more dramatic usefulness at points where the unloading will be made without the use of an intermediate storage bin.
Cement is forced from the "Quad-pod's" tanks into the pipe running the length of the car, through the hose and into the bin. |
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When perfected . . . there's the key phrase, for the perfection of Southern's service and equipment is what such tests as these mean to achieve.
Long months of brain-numbing study and knuckle skinning labor are involved. The process is arduous and often frustrating, because sometimes the thing that is supposed to happen doesn't , , , and sometimes the thing that isn't supposed to happen does.
With a minimum of effort, the "Dropper" dumps its cargo of crushed coal into the unloading pit at a Tennessee Eastman steam generating plant, thus completing another test cycle. |
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It's when you take a railway like Southern, studious and muscular at the same time, aware of the need to tailor its transportation services to the particular and money saving needs of customers -working with shippers anxious to see Southern do just this and willing to cooperate toward achieving that goal that amazing results are achieved.
Then, everybody Wins.
And that's real progress.