Western Railroad Discussion > Greenbrier gets rid of the Hopper "Bays"

Interesting announcement coming from Greenbrier. By getting rid of the 3 individual bays on the traditional grain hopper and having just one huge bay with a long "Tsunami" gate, they shrunk the car by almost six feet. They could add a dozen more cars without adding train length to a typical grain train. It also greatly lowers the center of gravity and improves aerodynamics. And dealing with just one gate instead of three, time to unload and load is also reduced.

https://www.railwayage.com/freight/greenbrier-announces-new-covered-hopper-railcar/?fbclid=IwAR2IzK-duQWZ9wE3bhPL9XliWrlT6Hk7mHzbxJuX9V3ToX8Vg1TB1Pf3gzA

Ted Curphey
Ontario, OR

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But how many unloading points are equipped to handle this one long door.
Most of the unloading pits I've seen are in the 10-15 foot long range and can only handle one door at a time.

PHall Wrote:
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> But how many unloading points are equipped to
> handle this one long door.
> Most of the unloading pits I've seen are in the
> 10-15 foot long range and can only handle one door
> at a time.

While smaller customers still only have the one bay at a time kind of pits, unit train facilities have pits that are 60' long and handle the whole car at the same time.

Ted Curphey
Ontario, OR

Interesting. Going to take a while to get used to the horizontal ribs like that. Surprised none of the manufactures hadn't thought of anything like that before, it seems like such a simple concept. 

ACF Centerflows are basically horizontally ribbed, but they can't match the aerodynamics or low center of gravity of this concept. Nice new car! === === = === JLH

thanks Ted for the posting....MOST interesting....any idea where these cars will be manufactured?   Our Gunderson 100 exhibit runs through February 2020 at the Oregon Rail Heritage Center......Arlen

asheldrake Wrote:
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> thanks Ted for the posting....MOST
> interesting....any idea where these cars will be
> manufactured?   

Not sure, but it's been a long time since the Portland plant produced grain hoppers! 

Ted Curphey
Ontario, OR

WINNER, WINNER, CHICKEN DINNER!

BB

CP's new covered hoppers have bulges in the sides appearing already, it looks like from stresses of loading one bay then the other. I wonder how these will hold up, if the single bay will eliminate some of that uneven stress during loading and unloading.

Posted from Android

Darren Boes
Lethbridge, AB
Southern Alberta Railfan

Buying stock in Rustoleum after I write this.

the "taggers" will be salivating when they see these!

Hopmere Hank

Talk about low clearance...

Looks like an Australian coal hopper.

Posted from iPhone

Saw one of these last week in the wild, it certainly stood out.

ok I'm the dummy, how do the gates open?

If you go to GBRX's website and navigate to the press section, they have a video that shows the operation. This is different than how the previously mentioned Trinity gates function. I'm scheduled to be at RSI so hoping to get a first hand look

Posted from Android

Press release with a video showing how the Tsunami Gate works;

https://www.gbrx.com/press-room/press-releases/greenbrier-introduces-advanced-covered-hopper-railcar-for-grain-transport/

Ted Curphey
Ontario, OR

sarailfan Wrote:
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> CP's new covered hoppers have bulges in the sides
> appearing already, it looks like from stresses of
> loading one bay then the other. I wonder how these
> will hold up, if the single bay will eliminate
> some of that uneven stress during loading and
> unloading.
>
> Posted from Android
Single bay would be worse unless there was some way to move the car as it was loading. All the stress would be in the center of the car cant see the top of it so dont know if there are mulipul doors or not.

So I have to ask . . . why not keep the same length and carry more grain per car?  That has to be more efficient than adding more cars to each train.

FloridaTrainGuy Wrote:
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> So I have to ask . . . why not keep the same length and carry more grain per car?  That has to
> be more efficient than adding more cars to each train.

Weight. There are restrictions on how heavy each car can be. Elimination the bays but keeping the length would cause the fully loaded weight of the car to be excessive.

I do see one big restriction these cars will have - the ability of the receiver to be able to handle this type of car. Many grain receivers have small pits in which to dump grain into, basically they can only unload a single bay at a time. Those customers would not be able to handle these cars without modifications to their unloading facilities.