hopper door operation

[NW Mailing List]

Jim,When we used to dump ballast, a rope and pulled was used to hold the hopper door. One end attached near the end of the car with other on the hopper door. Once this was securely held in place a pawl was moved out of the way and a sledge hammer used to knock open the latch.The pulley rope was eased out to let out the desired amount of ballast. This was done on each side of the hopper at about the same time.A crosstie was placed across the rails just in front of the rear wheels. The tie spread and smoothed the ballast to rail height.Jimmy LisleSent from my Verizon, Samsung Galaxy smartphone
-------- Original message --------From: NW Mailing List <nw-mailing-list at nwhs.org> Date: 9/24/23  8:32 AM  (GMT-05:00) To: NW Mailing List <nw-mailing-list at nwhs.org> Subject: hopper door operation As nearly as I can make out from pictures, there was a section of angle that spanned each pair of hopper doors.  The doors were held in the closed position by latches affixed to the outer sides of the hopper walls that held the angle.  My question is how these latches were released when it was desired to discharge the coal.  I see no evidence that the latches were connected from one side to the other, but it seems that if only one side were released, the weight of coal trying to push that door open might put considerable stress on the connecting angle?  Was the operation of these latches performed by men with pry bars moving them off of the angle?  For multi-bay hoppers, how would only opening a subset of the doors affect the coal discharge?  I've seen lots of footage of rotary dumpers in action, but the plain ole opening of bay doors seems to have escaped me.  Does anyone know of any video showing this operation?Thanks,Jim Cochran
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