Wanting to make a small tank car unloading facility, but have a few questions: What's the difference in the setup to unload LPG vs petrolium products? Do any of you have experience with the Traincat kit? looks like its the choice for N scale. Anyone else make something similar? Any resources you know of for pictures/information on unloading facilities? Thanks in advance for your help!
txron, By no means am I an expert, but I worked around refinery and satellite asphalt plants for many years as a transportation field rep., for a major left coast refiner that still exists today. I would preface my comments by saying that most likely you can see any number of designs out in the field. I have no experience with the Traincat kits but they are great looking "racks". My experience would say the are, by far, fancier than most facilities you may see in the real world. You asked about unloading facilities for LPG and liquid petroleum products. Let me say that in the world I worked in, LPG was pressured off of a car by using natural gas, to displace the butane, propane, iso-butane, etc, off of the car from the top side of the car. So the "rack" was used for both loading and unloading. In our case many times a load of iso-butane was unloaded, that car would immediately be back loaded with propane or olefins, as an example. This type of unloading was also used with other commodities such as sulfuric acid. In our case a car of fresh acid would be off loaded, topside, and then back loaded with spent acid and shipped out as a full carload. Other liquid petroleum products, such as asphalt cement (hot oil), spent caustic, molten sulphur, and others were loaded from the top side of a rack. However, these types of loads were unloaded from the belly cap on the bottom of the car and typically the operator had to work on the ground, even in bad weather. Some of these materials required the loaded car to be re-heated with steam, at destination, prior to pumping off. The steam coil inlets and outlets are on the bottom near the belly cap. Key here is "pumped off" and key for gases is "pressured off'. I have been retired since 1996 and am very aware that many ways of doing things in the "old days" have probably changed. DOT regulations have changed, I am sure. Some of the changes may be significant and others not quite so. Hope I didn't confuse you. Have fun and build what looks good to you. Carl
Thanks for that info, Carl. I'm planning an LPG loading facility for my layout, and it is very helpful. Regards, Ron McF
Platform Models Ron, I don't have a clue as to what is done prototypically, but Carl has given you a bunch of great info. As for modeling, I have done a small scratchbuilt rack (one car/time) on my home layout here, and a much more involved rack on my NTrack Modules. The larger rack uses TrainCats loading platforms and walkways that I modified a bit for 50' tank cars (he didn't have the 50' kit available when I started). In-Process pictures follow... My intent was to model a generic petroleum/chemical refinery and storage facility. NCDaveD Home layout: http://www.trainboard.com/railimages/showphoto.php/photo/104165/title/pumps/cat/500
Hi Dave. I love what you've done with those TrainCat platforms. I'm also planning to use them, but as you probably know, they've not been available for some time. (But hopefully, not for too much longer.) For the time being, my loading tracks look like this: But not for much longer Regards, Ron
Thanks Ron. Hopefully Bob will get these back in stock shortly for you. One of our club members took a couple of shots of my modules while we were in Atlanta at the National Train Show and to give you an idea of how the platforms look now that the modules are 95% complete (there are still 3 more feet to the right that aren't in the pictures). If you look closely to the right of the cooling towers, there is a little loading/unloading area for a single tank car that I fit in. Have fun and make sure to show us how it goes . NCDaveD
That’s a nice refinery you have there. I have a set of those Tomix(?) cooling towers on mine as well.
Carl, TYVM! Your help in answering my pesky questions last year went a long way in getting them to this state. sd90ns, Again, thank you for the kind comment. The cooling towers were the final big thing I had to get for structures. Mine came from PlazaJapan, 1 month before one of my favorite US mail order companies started stocking them. I do notice they don't stay in stock long . The fun came in reducing the width and length so it didn't overpower the other structures. Sorry for the thread hijack! NCDaveD
