MATERIAL TRANSPORT AND DISTRIBUTION CONSIST WITH CONTROLLED GATED HOPPER CARS AND CONVEYOR SYSTEMS

• Main Authors: HERZOG, Jacob, D, HERZOG, Stanley, M, BOUNDS, Ivan, E
• Format: Patent
• Language: English; French; German
• Published: 20.01.2021
• Subjects: BODY DETAILS OR KINDS OF RAILWAY VEHICLES; CONSTRUCTION OF ROADS, RAILWAYS, OR BRIDGES; CONVEYING; FIXED CONSTRUCTIONS; HANDLING THIN OR FILAMENTARY MATERIAL; MACHINES FOR MAKING RAILWAYS OF ALL KINDS; PACKING; PERFORMING OPERATIONS; PERMANENT WAY; PERMANENT-WAY TOOLS; PNEUMATIC TUBE CONVEYORS; RAILWAYS; SHOP CONVEYOR SYSTEMS; STORING; TRANSPORT OR STORAGE DEVICES, e.g. CONVEYORS FOR LOADING ORTIPPING; TRANSPORTING

A material transport and distribution consist including an offloading car, a generator car, and hopper cars. The offloading car includes a rotatable conveyor that can offload materials forward of and to the sides of the car. The generator car powers a plurality of hopper car conveyors. The hopper cars include a longitudinal conveyor that overlaps with conveyors of forward- and aft-located cars to enable transport of materials between cars and while the cars are negotiating a turn in the tracks. The hopper car hoppers are divided into chutes with respective guillotine-style gates. Each gate includes a resilient panel that flexes to enable closure of the gate without binding on materials exiting therefrom. A control system is provided to manage the gates and conveyors during offloading based on sensed characteristics of the operation thereof. An interlock system is also provided to initiate a cascading shutdown routine when a fault is detected.