Material or article handling – Wheeled – load-transporting type vehicles forming a train,...
Reexamination Certificate
1998-10-08
2001-02-20
Bratlie, Steven A. (Department: 3652)
Material or article handling
Wheeled, load-transporting type vehicles forming a train,...
C414S333000, C414S537000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06190106
ABSTRACT:
THE FIELD OF INVENTION
The present invention is directed to an apparatus for loading and unloading open top railroad cars containing bulk material such as coal, sand, rocks, gravel or a form of grain. The invention utilizes standard unloading and loading equipment coupled with a unique apparatus which facilitates the use of the standard equipment thus reducing the need for specialized equipment at trackside.
THE PRIOR ART
Railroads use open top cars to haul a variety of bulk cargo. Among the types of cars are hopper cars which may have 2, 3 or 4 bays in which the bulk cargo is adapted to be unloaded by chutes in the bottom of each bay. Another type of railroad car used to haul the bulk cargos is the ore car which may have an unloading chute at the base of its structure. The third type of railroad car which hauls, on occasion, bulk cargo, is the gondola car which usually has much shorter sides than hopper cars and is used to haul a variety of cargo, not just bulk. The ore and hopper cars have high sides, usually reinforced to keep the pressure of the bulk ore or coal from pressing outwardly and caving in the sides. Some cars must be rotary dumped or unloaded from the top.
Both discrete products, such as lumber products, metal ingots, and products made discrete by packaging as in bags or the like, and particular, fungible products, such as sand, coal, gravel and grain are frequently transported in open top containers such as railway gondola cars.
In the prior art, the unloading of open top containers such as hopper and gondola cars has presented a variety of problems which have been dealt with by differing techniques in different situations. The techniques of the prior art for unloading open top containers such as gondola cars include manual unloading, the use of car dumpers, and the use of cranes, shovels, or the like, for unloading of railway gondola cars, the prior art includes the use of a crane fixedly positioned alongside the railway tracks for unloading cars which are successively brought alongside the crane by being propelled along the track, the use of cranes, shovels, or backhoes supported atop fixed frame members which straddle railway tracks and the cars running thereon to permit the material handling machine atop the frame to unload the cars contents as they run beneath the frame member, and the use for shovels, backhoes and the like installed upon moveable underframe members which straddle the tracks and support the material handling equipment at a height exceeding the height of the car being unloaded. Some ore and hopper cars are designed to be unloaded either by opening chutes on the bottom of their compartments or by being turned upside down with the section of track it is sitting on in a huge unloader which rotates 180 degrees. That is the ideal situation but in most cases such an unloader or use of the chute is not practical, the latter case because it requires a complex structure underneath the track that the bulk cargo can pour into as it comes out of the bottom of the hopper or ore car.
When such equipment is not available, railroads and shippers have turned to expensive trackside unloading equipment such as large traveling cranes similar to those that unload the holds of ships or stationary cranes able to pivot over the hopper cars. Such facilities are usually found at the shippers facility, at a major coal loading operation, at a terminal at the dock for bulk being shipped by boat or at a major railroad yard.
In a great deal of the cases, such unloading equipment is just not available and with new shippers of bulk and buyers of that bulk cargo coming on line constantly there is a need for a simple, inexpensive loading and unloading apparatus which will do the job quickly and cheaply. There have been several attempts to provide such an apparatus before the instant invention became available.
In U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,190,394, 4,175,902 and 5,527,144, all issued to Herzog et al a method and apparatus for unloading railroad cars using a backhoe-loader with rubber tires is disclosed. The Herzog device incorporate powered hydraulic arms permanently attached to the backhoe for keeping it on top of the hopper car. The arrangement is clumsy and very expensive as it requires the backhoe manufacturer to provide the attachment to the equipment. A standard backhoe cannot be used as it does not have the attachments. In addition a front bucket winch is required in the device. In the '144 patent, Herzog et al attempt to improve the design with the addition of a single center beam underneath the backhoe to improve stability. The result is a complex, expensive piece of equipment which it would be difficult to use and is designed for a backhoe, not a crawler, as in the instant invention.
In U.S. Pat. No. 4,7223,886 and 4,830,562 to Frederking, there is shown a crawler unloader device for unloading railroad cars. The neb of the invention is essentially the provision of a special tracing arrangement which allows the tracks
35
,
36
of the crawler to expand outwardly so as to engage the top edge of the car being unloaded. Again, this is a very expensive alteration to a standard crawler and has never been built due to the costs involved.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,037,264 discloses hydraulically operated load handling vehicle which has several sets of wheels and two cranes and is designed to be operated in either direction. Each set of wheels is controlled by a hydraulic arm which raises one of the set so as to enable the vehicle to cross between two cars. Such a device is obviously complicated and has never been built.
A device similar to the preceding patent is that disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,096,954 for a railroad car unloader. It uses two sets of wheels which incorporate rollers such as
138
and
158
to roll along the top edges of railroad cars. Hydraulic clamps such as
122
hold the car in place while the operation of unloading is proceeding.
The U.S. Patents to Warren et al, U.S. Pat. No. 5,320,474 and U.S. Pat. No. 5,342,159 show a system which uses a crawler type crane to unload railroad cars. The crawler runs atop the car via a ramp
43
and then positions pallets such as
13
atop the car. The pallets are adjustable horizontally to engage the inner sides of the car. At least two pallets are necessary as the crawler has to pick up the pallets and place them in front of itself as it moves along the top of the car. Such as system is awkward and cumbersome as it requires several pallets and the step of moving and locating the pallets each time the crawler has to move.
The U.S. Patent to Mellious, U.S. Pat. No. 4,128,180, utilizes an arrangement similar to that shown by Herzog in his three patents, namely, a complex system of hydraulically operated clamps that enable a backhoe to unload railroad cars. The patent seems to provide only a means of allowing the backhoe to be loaded atop the cars, namely in the provision of a skid-plate underneath the equipment which allows it to be slid over the end edges of the cars.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,066,188 to Bush shows a combination loading ramp and support frame used in conjunction with a crawler type unloader to position the unloader atop a railroad car to be unloaded. The frame has a winch
30
which pulls the ramp up with the crawler device atop it although from an examination of the configuration there is a serious question as to whether it would function as described. The patent recites how the frame is attached to the tracks of the crawler by pins
38
and then the bucket
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elevates the whole structure up level with the top of the car and the winch pulls it sideways after hook
34
is engaged with the opposite end of the car. The width of the frame is adjustable through hydraulic means
24
,
26
. The device seems inoperable as when the wince is engaged, the bucket would dig into the ground (if the car is at the end of a siding) or be engaged between the track ties. If the bucket would be swung to one side it would create an instability that would seem to topple the crawler and attached frame sideways. There is no satisfactory explana
Hoye James M.
Richardson Melvin A.
Bratlie Steven A.
Hiney James W.
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