Hey I had a quick question about the buffer cars on ethanol trains.
I’ve noticed that they’re always either boxcars or hoppers. Why is this? Wouldnt an autorack be the most ideal because theyre taller and longer than most other rolling stock and thus offer the best spacing and protection between the hazmat and the locomotives?
Thanks for the help
Many railroads have restrictions concerning long cars and the trailing tonnage that is permitted behind such long cars. Where these restrictions are in place the tonnage of most ethanol trains would exceed the trailing tonnage limit. On some territories even a train of only auto racks will require a rear end helper account of the trailing tonnage restrictions. The restrictions are to prevent at derailment cause that is referred to as ‘string-lining’, where the long car is pulled of the track the same as pulling a string taut.
Atmo, Dude, where you been?
The boxcar or hopper is usually filled with something bulky. If the buffer car is dedicated - it most likely is sawdust. Now regarding those auto racks ?
(1) You want to place an inherently unstable/topheavy empty auto rack between loads?[(-D]
(2) you want to stuff a car that cannot turn worth squat in tight geometry curves and possibly in reverse curves with trucks pointed in opposite directions?[(-D][(-D]
(3) you want to risk a long car-short car derailment?[(-D][(-D][(-D]
(4) autoracks are now suddenly expendable? Especially when it’s not your car or the railroads?[(-D][(-D][(-D][(-D]
[swg][swg][swg]
You’re just ribbing me, right? [:P]
Buffer cars arent always empty? Ive seen grain hoppers as buffer cars before…Not that I’d want to eat grain thats been exposed to hazmat, but they don’t just use a stray empty as a buffer car? I suppose sawdust really isnt gonna be affected much though. This is a type of train I know very little about. Pardon my ignorance
How do auto trains tackle such curves then?
Yeah but wouldnt the big long autorack absorb more impact than a boxcar? But again, I suppose its a different story since the buffer car actually IS loaded…
[quote user=“mudchicken”]
(4) autoracks are now suddenly expendable? Especially when it’s not your car or the railroads?
I haven’t really looked into the question of the buffer cars (other than knowing they’re required by our hazmat rules), since we aren’t involved with unit trains on the hump (some crazy days notwithstanding). I’ve seen covered hoppers and gons around here. It might be interesting to check them out and see what’s in them, next time I get to see an ethanol train.
MC, Long/short combinations wouldn’t be an issue on an ethanol train. Our current rules prohibit cars shorter than 45 feet next to cars 80 feet or longer (placement toward the rear of the train can nullify the restrictions). Your typical ethanol tank car comes to something just under 60 feet in length.
[quote user=“Lord Atmo”]
You’re just ribbing me, right? 
Buffer cars arent always empty? Ive seen grain hoppers as buffer cars before…Not that I’d want to eat grain thats been exposed to hazmat, but they don’t just use a stray empty as a buffer car? I suppose sawdust really isnt gonna be affected much though. This is a type of train I know very little about. Pardon my ignorance
How do auto trains tackle such curves then?
[quote user=“mudchicken”]
(3) you want to risk a long car-short car derailment?
The buffers are property of the ethanol plants. Some, like CGCX 20309, 20439, and CNW 753781 out of Fairmont, MN are loaded with sand.
The plant here in town has RPMX 580080, WREX 3006, RPMX 580776, and CNW 600541 as buffers, all empty box cars Heron Lake, MN also has some former IC box cars for that purpose.
A lot of plants will just grab an empty CH for DDGs and use it as a buffer. UP requires only one buffer on the head end. Early on, as we shipped units to NS in Chicago, an issue came up with them wanting buffers on the rear for helpers. But that would require 9 more cars on the train, five on the head endl, and five on the rear. We let NS deal with that issue. Usually the empty units would come back to us with a bunch of gons as buffers, not knowing what happened to the buffers we shipped.
Conrail was good at that. Once they sent a shoving platform on the rear of a train, CASO 2. I bad ordered it for just about every thing in the book. We held it for months, with the intention of scrapping it. It was not safe for riding. In the end, it was shipped back with numerous conditions and restrictions. To this day, I cannot understand why any employee would use such a pile of junk.
UTLX cars are 60’11" as in UTLX 203720
Older TILX cars are 65’ 8" long as in TILX 190022
Newer TILX tanks are 59’ 5" long as in TILX 192222
CRGX tanks are 67’ 11" long, as in CRGX 30004
I am not sure the specs on the ARI tanks, but I am guessing they are no more than 60’ cars.
Thanks, Ken, for posting these car lengths!
Tank cars have gotten shorter and apparently wider as time has progressed. The 67’11" CRGX cars are among the earliest Trinity-built cars–originally for methanol, now used for ethanol.
The earliest UTLX 30000-gallon (m)ethanol cars were fully 69 feet in length (check, for example, UTLX 200040). They’ve gotten still shorter than the one you mentioned–UTLX 211000, for example, is 59’4" overall.
I’m sure they’re out there, but I can’t off the top of my head think of an ARI-built ethanol tank.
The earliest UTLX 30000-gallon tank cars were for LP gas, back in the early 1960s. These cars, in the low 83000 series (now retired, I suspect) had an overall length of 85’1"!
I not sure if anyone has seen those CMHX 52500 series hoppers on front of ethanol trains but right under the number on some of the cars is a yellow or white sticker saying “buffer car”. I have noticed that a few IC&E(former SOO Line) hoppers have also been stamped with these stickers.
On occasion i have seen a second buffer car added to the front if the train is longer than usual and at times ive seen one on the rear.
A few weeks ago I had a loaded ethanol train that was DPU. One buffer car on the front, one on the back.
I had seen a train that had one buffer car on both ends in conventional mode. It was westbound and all I could think was that I hoped it wasn’t a loaded train. Since most of the loaded ones seem to go east it was probably OK.
Jeff
We run buffers on both ends…saves switching at both ends of the trip.
Federal regs require 5 buffer cars. However, if 5 cars are not available, you need a minimum of 1. As such, all our unit hazmat trains only use one buffer between the engines and hazmat cars.
Nick
ARI built some tanks for UTLX in 2005 during the crush of production, and before the Louisiana plant had opened. You can spot them by the lighter yellow, non-reflective paint on the reporting marks. ARI also built some of the GATX cars in the 201xxx series cars, and some of the NATX 301xxx series cars. Cannot however find the photos of them. Perhaps they are still in the raw file name.
With the constant movement of these cars in Marketing controlled fleets, it is almost impossible to keep track of them.
The 85 foot propane tanks are indeed retired.
Back in 2003/2004 there was much confusion with the interchange of trains with eastern carriers to Sewaren and Albany. Since NS used buffers with the pushers, they had to bring them out with the helper units. When the trains were returned to us, the buffers were on both ends, and had to be switched out at the plants. Some of those plants had no room for all that work.
Flatlanders will never understand Mountain railroading.
Atmo:
(1) The buffer cars have to have some weight to them to (as CShaverr , BaltACD and ___ noted) to absorb the energy and that “filling” helps a great deal. That empty autorack isn’t absorbing much and is airborne in a New York second when coupled into shelf couplers.
(2) Auto racks rarely can be found at speed in anything over 6 degrees curvature and function best when coupled into like cars to spead out the lateral and drawbar forces easilly. Drawbar swings accross different types of cars are hardly uniform and rarely the same.
(3) Comments from (2) plus the fact that a lot of those ethanol plants have in-plant curvature pushing the twelve degree thirty minute range with older trackage pushing fifteen degrees. Curvature in many places is sacrificed to add capacity and sometimes there simply is not enough real estate available to lay out a desirable turning track alignment in new plants. Empty TOFC flats and autoracks are a derailment in the making in that type curvature, not only from stringlining-but also from binding lateral forces that result in wheel lift when shoving (especially when the empty is sandwiched with other empties between loads)…If there is a switch involved with this scenario, the things get expensive and ugly quickly.
Ethanol: Hazmat??? Haven’t you ever eaten your “Cherios”, “Grape Nuts” or corn flakes with Vodka? Must be a ‘Flatlander’, you!
Hays
Here is a photograph that illustrates the diameter difference between the older and newer ethanol tankcars.
The CMHX hoppers are now property of Valero Marketing.
Not many ethanol plants have old trackage. The plants that Valero just purchased all have baloon tracks, as do many others. Mason City has four 82 car tracks, plus loadouts and storage, again fairly modern with #11 switches. The plaint at Fairmont has two balloons, plus the old grain elevator recently upgraded to 100 car capacity with #10 switches. Lakota went with a small yard, but #10 switches. They cannot load units there, no matter how hard they try.
I don’t know of one plant outside of Eldora, Iowa, and Cargill at Oskaloosa, that does not have a modern yard. Even Cargill at Blair is fairly up to date, and they were built at least 10 years ago.
A lot of these plants have capacity for at least 250, if not more cars.