Topic: goods and categories translations

[ampersand]

I have noticed goods categories names in English have been recently changed. Not sure who and why changed them, but I am very happy that I didn't need to suggest it as the previous category names sounded at least, well... incorrect.

So currently the categories are :

Category en	Category (de)	examples
Packaged goods	Stückgut	Flour, Furniture, Textiles
Bulk	Schüttgut	Coke, Sugar beets
Oil	Mineralöl	Crude oil, Petrol, Diesel
Perishables	Kühlwaren	Poultry, Fish, Dairy
Liquids	flüssige Lebensm.	Milk
Timber	Holz	logs, planks
Agriculture	landw. Güter	Grapes, Barley
Pourable	Siloware (lose)	bulk cement, animal feed

In case the German were incorrect above, that'd be for a different forum.

I am aware that some, ex. players used to previous names may complain, but please keep in mind the current translations may not be the most accurate or the best possible choice, but at least they are now in English. I hope that they may be even improved if are not perfect now.

Therefore my suggestion is powder for feed and cement carrying vehicles. Two examples of usage of the term:
>1< (a German website)
>2<  (British)

I would also like to correct particular goods names and change them to lowercase, but that's for another post. (As well as where's the steel gone...)

A sidenote: If I could I would also suggest using the same category for both steel and wood, but I am aware this would either cause carrying wood in steel coil cars as _Haabxxx_ series or getting rid of them which I consider a serious loss.

[Leartin]

In German, the word "silo" is not used for coal bunkers. I could not say whether sugar beets, the other example named as bulk, are stored in silos, but I think for most bulk goods, the general idea is to store it as a heap. Perhaps as a heap in an enclosed, lowered area, but that wouldn't be a silo (or not what you'd think of as a Silo in German).
More specifically, a "Silofahrzeug" is for transporting bulk good with the property "Rieselfähig"- which translates to pourable, except it also makes clear that it's solid, not liquid (otherwise it would be "Gießfähig")

If you check your british link, you'll see that they are talking a lot about granular materials - powder is only handled in the last paragraph. The German link is about a "Staubgutwagen", which is indeed for powder.
Both powder and granular materials are "Rieselfähig", transported in "Silofahrzeugen" and stored in silos. I think it could make sense to say that powder is granular, since granular basically means grainy and powder just has a very low grain size, but categorizing something granular - like wheat grain - as a powder would be very strange.

I'm not a native english speaker, so I don't know what's wrong about "Pourable Goods", but if it has to go, I'd suggest "Granular Goods" rather than powder.

[makie]

The changes do Duke.
My English is poor, so if you think this or that is better, then do it.
Duke make some suggestion, i do not accept this because, for me the check is difficult and time consuming. I not do this, because lack of time.
If someone can check this suggestion, it would be nice.

Putting steel to wood --> no, this would break save games, and there are no need to do this.

Silo vehicles are unloaded with compressed air through a hose, so they must be closed. Otherwise the whole area would become dusty. It doesn't matter whether it is powder or granular,, the goods just have to be suitable for this efficient type of unloading.
[de]Silofahrzeuge werden mit Pressluft durch einen Schlauch entladen, deshalb müssen sie geschlossen sein. Sonst würde die ganze Umgebung eingestaubt werden. Ob Pulver oder Körner ist egal , die Ware muss nur für diese effizente  Art der Entladung geeignet sein.[/de]

[ampersand]

Thanks for all the helpful pieces of comparison above. Seems it is not that straightforward to copy categories between languages.

If you check your british link, you'll see that they are talking a lot about granular materials - powder is only handled in the last paragraph. The German link is about a "Staubgutwagen", which is indeed for powder.

Therefore I only wanted to draw attention to the last paragraph of the link you mentioned, as the beginning ones refer to granular goods, which are off the topic of powder. Unfortunately could not find any exemplificatory text on powder exclusively, sorry for mixing that in the topic of powder.

I'm not a native english speaker, so I don't know what's wrong about "Pourable Goods", but if it has to go, I'd suggest "Granular Goods" rather than powder.

For the same reason I believe cement does not belong to tiny and hard granular (grain, almonds), neither do grapes. Reasons in the very same link

Powdery materials such as flour, cement, salt and slate powder...

[makie]

Link 1. (DE and EN)

Optimized for the transportation of pulverized lignite (hazardous goods) and powder products with a bulk density of approx. 0.5 t/m³.
Sample products: Plastic granulate, cereal flour, bleaching earth, kaolin, aluminum silicate, soda (light).

It is for granulate and powder, but why not for cement?
Cement, it wights 2.5 t for 1 m3, it is too heavy for this wagon.

Of course, they do not use the wagon today for kaolin and next day for flour and next day for plastic granulate.
The trolley have to be cleaned and refitted when changing products.

[Leartin]

Therefore I only wanted to draw attention to the last paragraph of the link you mentioned, as the beginning ones refer to granular goods, which are off the topic of powder. Unfortunately could not find any exemplificatory text on powder exclusively, sorry for mixing that in the topic of powder.

Whether it's off topic depends on what "Siloware" is supposed to be exactly.
To be honest, I missed that this is in the p128.german category. p192.comic has pourable goods as well. Those products are, so far, sugar, grain and malt. I think that explains why powder would be a bad name in that context.

Link 1. (DE and EN)It is for granulate and powder, but why not for cement?
Cement, it wights 2.5 t for 1 m3, it is too heavy for this wagon.

Nitpicky, but 2.5t for cement sounds like a specific weight, not a bulk weight, which should be closer to 1t. Still too heavy for that wagon though.

Silo vehicles are unloaded with compressed air through a hose, so they must be closed. Otherwise the whole area would become dusty. It doesn't matter whether it is powder or granular,, the goods just have to be suitable for this efficient type of unloading.

Incidentially, if this type of unloading is required (rather than just a method to speed it up or to transport the goods somewhere, eg. up a silo tower) the substance transported is not pourable. If that's the key point of the category, I'd agree with ampersand that "powder" is a better name (and can be used in German as well: https://www.railcargo.com/de/leistungen/wagenladungen/equipment/gueterwagen/staubwagen)

[ampersand]

I am totally unprofessional in the subject, so I find it very interesting to read all the opinions. My conclusion from all the above so far is that

• starting from goods in the form of thin dust (flour, cement) towards larger particles (sugar, grain)
  
• there is a dimension beginning with powder and becoming more and more pourable from some freely defined point.

If I am right and both terms are used in the transport domain, the decisive question would be
what particular goods are there in the group that you need the most appropriate word for.

[Duke]

I wasn't really satisfied with my translation of "Pourable". That was copied from pak192.comic. I found that category difficult to find a name for since I'm not really familiar with how goods are categorized for transport in real-life. I have reverted it back to "Siloware (lose)" for now until we're sure what the proper name should be.

[ampersand]

There is nothing worse in the whole world than "Siloware (lose)". May be except for a piece fish that's fallen off your sandwich into the slits of your armchair never to be found.

[Isaac Eiland-Hall]

I hesitate to take the thread off-topic, but I cannot refrain from saying that I can think of at least three things worse than "Siloware (lose)". Maybe four.

[ampersand]

Profiting from temporary inactivity in the topic and absence of active translators I stealthily changed the two last ones into:

farm crops	landw. Güter	Grapes, Barley
pourable powder	Siloware (lose)	bulk cement, animal feed