Kempin Ballast Hopper

[Raymbo]

Jeremy and Jeff Kempin, Rock Island Northern RR in Clearlake MN invented this ballast hopper. I bought it and did a few modifications on it, put some Titan Bettendorf steel wheel trucks under it and painted it. It is now operational on our Nostalgia Trip railroad and graphics will be painted on next week.

It is a great car, extremely well designed and I am very pleased to own it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U_tWpFo6Dpc

[ccvstmr]

Nice to see someone is FINALLY marketing ballast hoppers that put the ballast where it should be put...to the sides of the track...NOT down the center of the track! One suggestion...consider some kind of rubber blade scrapper on either side of the chutes to push the ballast off the rails and out of the way of the following truck to prevent derailments. And if you think your trucks can handle the weight...can always add extensions to the car sides and ends so the car holds more ballast material...just be careful, because adding more material raises the car center of gravity.

Think you'll find it's a lot easier and faster to produce a nicely groomed right of way with a side dump instead of center dump hopper cars. Don't ask me how I know! Carl B.

[Glenn Brooks]

Hi Ray,

Did I see a brief moment where your ballast doors opened to the inside of the rail?? Any chance you could post a short video showing a closeup of the mechanism? I've wanted to build a 12" ga ballast car for quite some time, but haven't figured out how to control the ballast discharge so it doesn't flood the track and bury the trucks in gravel.

Thanks
Glenn

[Raymbo]

Here are a couple of photos of the gates and mechanisms. Notice the springs holding the movable gate, these are an absolute necessity to allow for the gate to move up and down to clear the hopper.

After cross leveling a section of track needing maintenance, the ties and rail were up above where they were before so new ballast was needed to fill in the area around the ties.

The gates can be operated to place the ballast on both the inside and outside of the rail head. I found that if I dumped too much ballast material on either side of the rail it would cause the wheels on the car to want to derail, but if I kept the car moving and carefully placed the material the car and the train would run over the area without problems. In fact, I was able to ballast up about 40' of track in about 5 minutes with this car.

Once the ballast was on the roadbed and ties, it was a simple matter to sweep in in.

[ccvstmr]

Glenn, here's a photo series of a 2.5" scale ballast hopper I helped a friend build for his railroad. We built two of these. Believe I figured with 6" side/end wall extensions, each car would transport some 11 cu ft. ballast.

1st...here was the inspiration for the car size...a G scale ore jenny...

Here's a close up of the door control mechanism. The bottom lip of the chutes are located outside the rails...perhaps halfway between the rail and end of the ties. The hinges were stainless steel piano hinges from McMaster Carr (the cars spend most of the Summer outside exposed to the elements). Turnbuckles were used to set the door operation so they could be fully closed...what door opening resulted was more than enough. Keep in mind, a lot of this is going to depend on what kind of ballast material you're trying to discharge and whether that material is dry, damp or wet. There's a control lever for each chute door: one lever at one end of the car, the lever for the other door on the opposite end.

Here's an end view of the car. There's a latch to hold the chute doors in the closed position. A clamp is used to set how far the lever can be moved which determines chute door open and ballast exit flow.

Inside the hopper...

Lastly, here's a close up view where the owner used a piece of old tractor tire, mounted on brackets and attached to the truck bolsters. The tires in this config are "cup shaped". Any excess ballast material above the rail head is scooped to the center of the track. Shovels, rakes and brooms finish the grooming after lining and leveling has been completed.

Does that give you some ideas now? Carl B.

[Raymbo]

Carl, I like the flanger out of an old tire.

Your car appears to discharge only to the outside of the rail, I really like to be able to discharge on either side. I will see if I can figure a way to mount a flanger--great idea.

[ccvstmr]

Raymbo,
Built two of those cars at the same time. Found it was easier to work the ballast on one side of the track at a time. For new track on 2x2 ties, one car load of ballast would cover some 50-60 feet of track (if I remember correctly). After the one car was emptied...the other car would be used to drop ballast on the other side of the track. While the cars were getting refilled, the track would be "adjusted", cleaned and ready to push ahead when the ballast train returned. Here's another view of the ballast cars...you can see the extensions added to carry more material per load. Carl B.

XIMG_6643.JPG (23.47 KiB) Viewed 7082 times

[Raymbo]

I finished my Kempin ballast hopper today. It is not a model of a prototype car but I looks like it might have been.

My version of 1954 graffiti with chalk. Switchmen would use chalk to designate track numbers and as a kid, I just had to do the KILLROY pickies, except I made mine KILL RAY WUZ HERE. I must have done that a hundred times over a couple of years.

[Glenn Brooks]

CCVSTR and Raymbo,

Hey, thanks for the photos and descriptions of your hopper cars. Very nice indeed. Gives me confidence a hopper car design willl work. Obvously the door arrangements control ballast flow sufficiently that the whole load doesn't dump in one spot, trapping the car on the rails with a big pile of gravel. That was my biggest concern. Clearly you've worked out a way to make these very functional.

Still haven't figured out how prototype ballast cars actually stayed on the track, as the few hopper designs I've been able to inspect had doors running across the body of the car side to side, with no blade to distribute the gravel running out onto the track. Gandy dancers with shovels maybe???

[Erskine Tramway]

CCVSTR and Raymbo,

Still haven't figured out how prototype ballast cars actually stayed on the track, as the few hopper designs I've been able to inspect had doors running across the body of the car side to side, with no blade to distribute the gravel running out onto the track. Gandy dancers with shovels maybe???

Hi Glenn......

On the ballast trains I pulled with the crossways doors, they would put a tie in front of the rear truck and shove it along with the wheels. The tie would spread the rock out to the sides. Some of the newer manual ballast cars have a longitudinal 'gate' kind of like Raymbo's, that open to one side or the other of the rail. The gate has a curved top, like a grain gate, and the sides are curved like chutes to direct the flow. A section man, with a bar in a socket on the gate, would walk alongside to adjust the direction and rate of flow. The newer, radio controlled, ballast cars have little plows that come down ahead of the rear wheels.

Mike

[Glenn Brooks]

Thanks Mike, that's fascinating. I like the curved chute idea for my 12" stuff. Maybe I can make Raymbo's design with something like a chute.

[Erskine Tramway]

Glenn......

Here's a sketch of the shape of the gates on the latest manual ballast cars. Like I said, the section man puts a bar in the socket to rotate the gate so the ballast 'chutes' to the inside or outside of the rail. You raise the bar for the outside, and lower it for the inside. Most of the cars have two gates per side.

The sketch is to no particular scale, but you should get the idea of the shape. Depending on your car construction, the bar socket might need to be in a different orientation, or because of the size, maybe on an extension of the center pivot rod to the ends of the car.

Mike