http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JRtnP8pERQc
If you look at the tank cars on the first part of the train, you’ll see that they seem to be connected with some form of piping. Why is this?
The uploader said this was in NY on a Vermont Railroad owned line if that helps.
This is a surviving example of the General American Transportation Corporation’s “TankTrain”. The object was to operate a unit train of tank cars that could be loaded and unloaded through one tank car. I’m sure it worked (I saw their demonstration model once), but not sure whether the added expense justified its use over the long run.
(Mistakes corrected…I typed the entire response underneath that @#$%^&* yellow footer!)
We can consider a train of tank cars as a pile. A pipe the length of a train could not negotiate the curves so it has to be cut into sections with each section sealed off. And of course since it is not as long as the distance we need to move what is in it we need to haul it from one end to the other once it is filled. In cutting it into pieces we take one pipe and make it into a bunch of little pipes. But if we can add flexible connectors from car to car we can make it into one pipe again and empty it at one spot.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ByoZNudQ_hw
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uv5zeR3A48s
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nSFjGWK8qVc
The three links above are from a search of You Tube for ‘Tank Trains’. In the past there have been some Threads on this Forum that addressed the concept, and use of these tank Car trains. More recently, with the larger quantities of Crude Oil moving by rain, they might have a resurgence of their use(?)
See the GATX TankTrain ™ webpage - which says “The GATX TankTrain™ System can be loaded or unloaded at a rate of 3,000 gallons per minute. A five-car string loads in just 90 minutes, while a 90-car train takes less than five hours.” - at:
Biggest issue I see with these is the same shared by intermodal cars. Something happens to one car in the connected set (like a bad wheel bearing), then you may have to set out the entire set (5-10 cars or however many) if the problem can not be resolved.
First you have to find someplace that you can stash that many cars (several long tank cars will take up a LOT of space), then you just left behind a good sized chunk of the train that will have to be forwarded later. Unless the flexible pipes can be easily disconnected… I don’t know. Never had to deal with them.
I don’t know if they’re still in use on the Vermont Railway, but the TankTrains pretty much cleared oil barges from Albany off of Lake Champlain when they were introduced. The pipes between cars were used only for loading and unloading and were supposed to be empty when the cars were moving. Cars were connected by tighlock couplers and could be separated relatively easily. The big advantage was that a string of cars could be unloaded at one connection, which meant that they didn’t have to be moved one at a time to the pipe connections for loading or unloading.
Line needs some serious vegetation control.
That’s interesting - it supports John Kneiling’s assertion that a properly-run integral train is at least competitive with and perhaps conclusively superior to a water-borne move.
Link to one of my photos of TankTrain™ cars near Albany, NY in June 2011 (someday I’ll post the rest of them . . . ):
The Buckeye (Pipeline Co.) Albany Terminal at the Port of Albany (near Glenmont, just south of the city) unloads 96-car unit trains of ethanol (and maybe some other products) on 4 tracks daily by connecting each car to a “manifold” pipe that’s about 12-inch diameter - takes 4 or 5 guys a couple-3 hours or so at the beginning and end of each 10 - 12 hour shift. So once the cars are “spotted”, they don’t have to be disconnected or moved until they are all empty.
Can “Tank Train” equipment be used to handle crude oil,or does the Viscosity of the product mean it needs to unloaded car-by-car?
Crude oil has a wide range of viscosities. If you are thinking of Bakken oil, then it has a low viscosity.
Tank Trains do haul crude oil from Wunpost (south of San Ardo, CA) to Carson, CA. It then goes by pipeline to a refinery in Torrance, CA.