Move rocksalt by rail?

[CPSK]

Hi;
I just read an article in my local North Jersey paper about the problem the state is having getting rocksalt for the roads. The article says that a large shipment of salt is sitting at a port in Maine waiting for a ship to take it down to Port Newark NJ. Due to an old US law, the shipment must be made by a ship sailing under the US flag. Unfortunately, getting the appropriate ship will take 30 days or more, so smaller ships (under the US flag) which are much slower have been taking the loads.
So I immediately have this thought: Why not load the salt into hopper cars and ship it by rail to NJ?
Would this be possible?
I realize that for any government agency to make a change like this would probably take far longer than it will take for a ship flying the US flag to arrive in the port to take the shipment to NJ, but perhaps for the next load?

CP

Edit: I looked up the capacity of a hopper car - about 130 tons. This shipment of salt is 40,000 tons, so that means to ship by rail, more than 300 hopper cars would be required. I suppose scaring up so many cars in short notice is next to impossible, but perhaps - as I stated above, such a plan could be worked out as a stand-by in case the ship is not available.

[GP40MC1118]

Can't answer your question, but I know that the Mass Coastal/CSX served facility in
Taunton is quite busy with trucks from towns/cities coming IN to get road salt. There
was an article in the Taunton Gazette about a week or so ago about the conga line
of trucks lined up on local streets waiting to get in...

D

[mowingman]

You have to use covered hoppers for salt. Can not move it in open hoppers, as it will get wet and "melt down", or melt into massive clumps. Loading covered hoppers with that much salt would take quite a while.
Jeff

[CPSK]

You have to use covered hoppers for salt. Can not move it in open hoppers, as it will get wet and "melt down", or melt into massive clumps. Loading covered hoppers with that much salt would take quite a while.
Jeff

Right. I guess that's why it is mostly moved by ship in coastal areas. Would be rather difficult to get more than 300 covered hoppers in the time it will take to get a US flagged ship to deliver the salt. But in 30 days, the need will be gone. New Jersey is really at fault in this issue. Someone should have had the foresight to order more salt early, so it would be sitting in stockpiles in the state, rather than up in Maine.

CP

[F-line to Dudley via Park]

http://www.necn.com/02/17/14/Massive-sh ... kID=862972" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Eastern Salt in Chelsea supplies road salt via ship for about half the towns in MA, and a good percentage of NH. The above news report just ran this morning about the extra shipments coming in to replenish the state's supply with an emergency infusion.

Pretty sure this is where it all comes in, under the massive tarps shown in this spring/summer Google shot: http://goo.gl/maps/uktpj" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;.

Unfortunately, zero rail access there. And I'm not sure Everett Terminal 1-1/2 miles west has room at its rail-served docks for a salt facility. And at least in MA there aren't any other places where it would be easy to set up a space-intensive salt yard that could take ship-to-rail transloads. Only place I could think of that has all the intermodal ingredients + the space is this half-empty tank farm next to the Fall River Branch on MassCoastal: http://goo.gl/maps/Ev6ME" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;. And I doubt there's much demand for a second huge supplier with Chelsea handling so much of the state's municipalities. Northern New England might be a different story, but I'm a lot less familiar with what Portland or Portsmouth can handle in terms of ship size + rail access + available facility space on valuable waterfront real estate. You really need the right combination of all 3 to make it work in any sort of mass scale.


That said, there is a little bit of it shipped by rail. I know Grafton & Upton was pitching municipal transloads to area towns from an interested shipper, though I don't know if they got any takers.

[Dick H]

The VRS handles many cars of road salt for delivery in
several areas in VT, including Rutland, Bellows Falls
and Ely. AT one time, the CP(D&H) used to deliver
a unit train of salt to the VRS at Whitehall. However,
lately it seems the salt moves in blocks of cars on
the regular freight moves. I do not know where the
salt originates from. I am guessing New York state.

[GP40MC1118]

F-Line

That would be Weaver's Cove, the former Shell tank farm that Hess wanted to turn into
a LNG facility. Fall River & surrounding communities killed that project. I doubt a salt
facility would be wanted there either because one of the ways FR killed LNG was to
get former Rep B Frank to get the Taunton River designated a wild and scenic river.
Hess still owns the site, probably just to spite FR. Even a proposed site for the SoCo
Rail layover yard here was being questioned.

D

[Hux]

Northern New England might be a different story, but I'm a lot less familiar with what Portland or Portsmouth can handle in terms of ship size + rail access + available facility space on valuable waterfront real estate. You really need the right combination of all 3 to make it work in any sort of mass scale.

Well, as far as Portsmouth the Newington Branch goes right by the salt pile....including the end of the line which wraps right around a huge pile before ending at Shattuck Way in Newington.

[newpylong]

C&C delivers a lot of salt to a bulk facility in W. Lebanon, NH.

[Noel Weaver]

I know in my working days with Conrail between Selkirk and Buffalo we handled a huge amount of salt in covered hoppers. The G & W came in to Rochester with a solid train of it just about every night and much of it went east. There was a huge pile or two in the yard area at South Schenectady, some more in West Albany and more still headed for New England via the B & A. I would be willing to bet that rail is still a big factor in the shipment of salt for highway use.
Noel Weaver

[BandA]

You have to use covered hoppers for salt. Can not move it in open hoppers, as it will get wet and "melt down", or melt into massive clumps. Loading covered hoppers with that much salt would take quite a while.
Jeff

In a pinch (which is what we have now), can't they just blue tarp open hoppers?

[fogg1703]

In a pinch (which is what we have now), can't they just blue tarp open hoppers?

A great photo from Larry Goss's Maine Rail Photos site shows how the BAR used to haul it from Searsport.

http://users.silcon.com/~lgoss/bar873.htm" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[craven]

I recall a picture on the Grafton & Upton RR site that showed the rails traveling over an area where trucks would be positioned underneath to receive Road Salt from rail cars.

[ExCon90]

There's a parallel discussion going on under Central Maine & Quebec that deals with the present situation at Searsport.

[mowingman]

The amount of work involved to tarp all those hoppers would be cost prohibitive I think.
There would also be enviromental concerns is the load did get wet.
Jeff

In a pinch (which is what we have now), can't they just blue tarp open hoppers?

A great photo from Larry Goss's Maine Rail Photos site shows how the BAR used to haul it from Searsport.

http://users.silcon.com/~lgoss/bar873.htm" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;