Ex-Coal Fired Power Stations...

Model Railroader Prototype information for the modeler
1

Some people are just awkward! [:-^]

Yesterday’s research taught me that some coal fired power stations converted to burning gas. This has given me some ideas and questions.

  1. Did some stations convert to oil burning and, if so how were they supplied?

The evidence seemed to be that while the conversion killed RR hopper traffic it sometimes produced a small amount of oil tankcar traffic for back-up power. This seems to me to provide an opportunity for even small layout builders.

With the large hopper traffic gone there is still a reason for a short siding: maybe just a couple of cars long, The bulk of the power station and maybe some derelict track could be represented in or on the backscene. Big structure with a small layout. That should make somebody happy. [:)]

Of course there are then questions…

  1. When did power stations start to convert to gas? (oil???)
  2. Did any of them receive gas-tankcars with Propane/Butane to provide back-up? (or even main supply?)
  3. Did gas just get piped straight into the boiler houses or did they have any sort of reception facilities?
  4. If they had back-up oil fuel did that get burnt in the same boilers (as vapourised fuel?) or did they have a seperate set of boilers?
  5. What sort of quantity of back-up oil would a small plant hold? How would it be held? In horizontal sausage tanks or oil terminal type tank?
  6. When would they have become “environmentally aware” and started putting bunds and capture drains around/under tankls and unloading facilities?
  7. Does anyone make any tankcar unloading facility structures? I’ve found plenty of loading stuff but nothing for unloading - in H0. [Knightwing in the UK do an 00 unloading kit which would just about scrape by… I think that they do it in N as well].

Thanks

[8D]

2

The conversions started in the 1930’s and especially after WW2.

Gas is piped in.

Power plants would still have a rail spur to recieve boilers, turbines and transformers by rail. Granted they might only recieve one carload a year or two.

3

Jeff Wilson did an entire chapter on the history and modeling all of the above in one of his "Industries by the Tracks"books published by Kalmbach. If you look in their book section on this site, you should be able to determine which one it was. There are plenty of photos too plus some track plans.

4

Natural gas arrives by pipeline. Since every home and business is supplied with natural gas, the distribution network is pretty well established for that.

Oil burning facilities might receive fuel by pipeline or tanker vessel (if located on a navigable waterway) but there were some facilities that received bunker oil by tank car.

http://tracksidetreasure.blogspot.com/2009/07/oil-trains-and-tanktrains-to-cns-bath.html

For another interesting scenario, the Bruce Nuclear Power facility at Douglas Point, Ontario received many unit trains of bunker oil while the plant was being built and the reactors were under construction. This may have been used to fire auxiliary generators until the main plant was brought on line.