CASE STUDY: In-and-Out Railroad Scale

When we read about this case study below, we felt that we just had to share it with our readers. A scale company in Iowa installed a very unique scale system which utilizes three LPRA railroad track scales. The system also utilizes Cardinal load cells, 825 digital weight indicator, SB500 Remote Display and Remote Weigh Mobile App for iPad.

The grain facility typically weighs 25 car sets of corn for ethanol or corn sweetener and 18 car sets of beans. The Cardinal railroad scale was purchased instead of an overhead load-out weighing system and offered significant savings for the customer. The way the system works is an eastbound train pulls railcars onto the scale to get the Tare weight on scale platforms #3 and #2 and then Gross and Net are determined when the train pulls forward onto scales #2 and #1 with a special tare. Custom software developed by Cardinal Scale and installed in the 825 Spectrum weight indicator allows the operator to turn scales on and off as railcars come across them to prevent weighing railcars when unnecessary. The 825 indicator’s special software also incorporates a temporary Tare weight for the operator to get a target fill weight using a fill program to fill up or top off the last part of a railroad car. Then, cars are pulled forward by a trackmobile into final weighment position to receive their Gross, Tare, and Net weights.

The USA-made 825 indicator is connected via Ethernet cable  to a wireless router which has a long-range radio (wireless access point) attached to it for Wi-Fi output. This allows the operator in the trackmobile to wirelessly control the railroad scale through an Apple iPad using Cardinal Scale’s Remote Weigh mobile app. This system replaces their old method of two-way radio communication back and forth from the scale house and allows them to use one less person for the operation. The trackmobile operator can move the railcars and see when  each car is positioned on the scale for weighing without ever leaving the cab. This efficiency allows the grain facility to reduce the amount of man power needed from five people down to four
people. Case Study (pdf file)

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