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

摘要

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.