and he notes - Maybe some facts about glass production might help. This is from the Container Recycling Institute:
"Glass is made from readily-available domestic materials, such as sand, soda ash, limestone and "cullet," the industry term for furnace-ready scrap glass. The only material used in greater volumes than cullet is sand. These materials are mixed, or "batched," heated to a temperature of 2600 to 2800 degrees Fahrenheit and molded into the desired shape. Glass container companies represent a $5.5 billion dollar industry, and employ about 18,000 skilled workers in 49 glass manufacturing plants in 23 states. There are 65 cullet, or recycled glass, processors in 25 states. On average, a typical glass processing facility can handle 20 tons of color-sorted glass per hour." It would sound like three freight cars would fall short of demand. But what is more interesting is the idea that "cullet" would be shipped in an open car (such as a gondola) instead of wire. And how would a covered hopper work for wire? It would seem as though the covered hopper would be more useful for shipments of glass sand (such as Oriskany Sand from U. S. Silica's operation in West Virginia) or it could be used for potash or limestone. Since only a couple grades of sand can be used for glass production, sand from a local pit may not be correct but it would make interesting operation if a deposit of glass grade sand was 'discovered' on your right of way and a pit set up. As Jim K. pointed out a hopper car was used for scrap glass bottles at the brewery he used to work in. Either a covered or open hopper would work but a gondola would pose unloading problems, especially if the glass was reduced to granular form. However since most recycled glass is bottles or other containers, (sheet glass such as windows, more often than not, are sent to a dump) a load of scrap glass would be one of the several colors used in bottle production (green, brown etc.). Auto glass would be clear but it is usually recycled by the reclamation yard (aka 'junk yard). You could build a junk yard though. It would be interesting to find out what a glass recycling plant does with the tons of bottles they process. Are they shipped intact (after sorting) to the glass manufacturer where they are crushed and added to the melt or does the recycling plant do the pulverizing and ship carloads of crushed glass. Either way I don't think they'd use a gondola. You might ask Santa for a couple of hopper cars. One idea: Find a couple of AF hoppers, the ones with the coal load. After converting them to scale, paint the loads white (or whatever color you're recycling) and sprinkle the wet paint with table salt (Kosher would be about the right grain size). The grains will reflect light and give the appearance of glass. As an alternative, you could fill the gondolas with crushed potato chips, add the salt and deliver them to a handy siding where they become a midnight snack! ;-) Raleigh in a bit nippy Maine ... At 06:52 PM 11/27/2008, Pflarrian wrote: >Hello, > >Wow! Lots of great ideas, guys, thanks! Now, I will agree with the >idea that real glass would look best, but we have cats, and I am >*NOT* using real glass around them. They *WILL* get into it, and >they will get hurt, and then my wife *WILL* kill me! ^OO^ > >I'm not too thrilled with the idea of cutting up tons of clear >styrene. The tempered glass idea is good, but I think I'll go with >the idea to look through the holiday stuff for "clear" fake snow chips. > >Thanks for the glass block ideas though! I'd been thinking about >that for a while, and that was going to be question #2. ;) > >I have to admit, the whole covered hopper idea had occurred to me. >Thing is, I only have 3 freight cars right now. 2 Gondolas, and one >covered hopper, and I want to use all three. I was also planning on >modeling the recycling plant on-line, the assumption being that the >glass doesn't have to go very far, and never leaves the "home road" >rails. I could and probably will also use the covered hopper for >shipping wire to the glass plant (some older glass block has wire >reinforcement - they outlawed it about 5 years ago due to injury problems). > >- Brian Empanger (<mailto:pflarrian1%40yahoo.com>[EMAIL PROTECTED]) > > [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] ------------------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/S-Scale/ <*> Your email settings: Individual Email | Traditional <*> To change settings online go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/S-Scale/join (Yahoo! ID required) <*> To change settings via email: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
