I was considering buying the Walther’s Diesel Fueling Facility for my yard and then realized that I could make my own platform from sidewalk material I have. Also, I already have a little pump house and some fuel storage tanks. I made the water and diesel fuel hoses from bent 14 gauge wire that looks great, mounted in stands made from rectangular brass. The only thing I’m not sure about is the offloading thing in the Walther’s kit that supposedly takes the fuel from the top of the tank car and pipes it underground to the storage tanks. It’s the same offloading thing that comes with Interstate Fuel & Oil from Walther’s. Do I need to try and build that or were there other ways that tank cars were unloaded? I wonder if they were offloaded into tanks from hoses underneath, which might not even need to be modeled or simply modeled again with a piece of wire.
I know this is a minor issue but thought I’d ask and see if some retired or active railroad men could help.
most fuel tanks are offloaded thru piping to the top of the tank and fuel is taken out at the bottom of the tank to refuel the diesels…some tanks don’t even require a pump because the head pressure in the tank is sufficient enough to push the fuel out of the tank as long as a level in the tank is always higher than the refueling port…chuck
IF the inbound diesel fuel arrives by tank car or 18 wheeler tanker truck these will need to be unloaded from the BOTTOM…The 18 wheeler tanker will have its own pump but the tank car will need to be pump out because you are pumping the fuel into fuel storage tank with the hatch on top,.
Thank you for the help. Based on what you’ve said, the Walther’s offloading stand is incorrect because it is meant to offload tank cars from the top. I would guess that to model what you’ve described, all I need is a hose lying next to the spotted tank car hooked up to an underground pipe that presumably is hooked up to the pump in the pump house. In turn, piping under the pump house is hooked up to the storage tanks. Correct?
I’m not trying to turn this into “rocket science” but I’d like to model the diesel facility correctly.