Marcellus Shale Fracking – Transloading Bulk Materials for Marcellus Shale Drilling

Posts Tagged ‘transloading station’

The kind of transloading equipment that is needed for handling the different type of bulk supplies industry needs to keep their production going are specific in nature. Some of the different types of equipment are commonly used in other places, but having them all assembled in one place so any type of rail car can be unloaded in an efficient manner is what makes the difference.

The purpose of this equipment is to transfer large volumes of bulk material from rail cars to tractor trailers or vise verse in an efficient manner that is safe for the workers and does not damage the merchandise in any measurable degree.

To do this the first piece of equipment that is needed is the transloading station. This is a facility that is purpose built to transfer goods and commodities between rail to road. This facility has to have a rail line running to it along with access to main roads in the community where it is located.

To off load bulk commodities from hopper rail cars, mobile conveyors are necessary. They need to be mobile since it is easier and more efficient to move them than the entire line of railcars. There are also mobile cranes that are used to lift the containers off the rail cars and load them onto waiting flatbed trucks.

The use of pumps and pneumatics are also necessary to transfer liquid goods from one location to another. Forklifts and small trucks are used to offload goods that are being transported by pallets.

All of these things are common in the world of business, but only brought together at a transloading station. By using transloading equipment in an efficient manner your products can be safely transported to their final destination at a lower cost more efficiently.

To be able to handle bulk sand railcar unloading, the right equipment must be on hand. This is unless you have a facility that allows for a truck to be placed under a hopper car. This is impractical in most cases, so the next best way is for a conveyor system to be used.

A portable conveyor is the practical way of offloading a hopper railcar in the safest and most efficient manner. The reason being is that a mobile conveyor assembly can be easily moved from hopper car to hopper car in a matter of minutes. This type of system is easily operated by just one person.

This type of device works by placing an open chute below the hopper car’s discharge opening located at the center bottom of the railcar. The conveyor belt is then extended at a 45-degree angle up, which discharges over the opening of a hopper trailer that is pulled by a semi truck.

This type of offloading is fast and secure. Since there is no intermediate transfer point, the chances of contamination are greatly reduced.

The speed at which one of these mobile conveyors can load a tractor trailer with 20 tons of sand is approximately 10 to 15 minutes. Since a railcar holds up to 100 tons, this means a single car can be unloaded nearly every hour with just one mobile conveyor. The more conveyors a transloading station has, the faster the train can be unloaded.

There are some stations that employ 3 such mobile devices and can handle 300 tons of sand an hour. This is equivalent to 15 tractor trailers ready for delivery of the bulk sand.

This process of bulk sand railcar unloading is done most efficiently in time and cost at a transloading station that employs a mobile conveyor belt.