How do day do dat? - Supplying supply tracks

Model Railroader Prototype information for the modeler
1

I asked you experts about supply tracks the other day. Thank you agaiin for your comments. They were/are greatly appreciated. [:)]

Now for a few more basic questions along the same line:

  1. I assume that diesel fuel is transported by rail via a tanker car. How is the diesel fuel transferred from a tanker to the diesel fueling platform storage tank, in order to refuel the locomotives?

  2. How is “green” sand (for sanding towers) transported? How is it transferred from the “storage car” to the green sand bin?

I’m asking these questions so that I can determine how close or far away my diesel fuel storage tank and drying house sand bin are from the supply track.

Thanks again in advance…

Tom

2

Oil is delivered by about any method you can think of including trucks. generaly it is pumped into large oil tanks but at some locations tank cars were elevated on a built up siding and gravity feed was used. Sand is delivered by covered hopper. usually the shorter ones as it is very heavy. It is heated to drive out the moisture and then blown into the storage hopper for gravity feed into an engine sand box usually through a small line like 1-2" in dimater.

3

Norm,

Thanks. I already understand what happens once the sand is dried. What I want to know is how do they get the green sand out of the covered hopper? Is it like the oil tankers and done by gravity? How would they do in back in the 30’s and 40’s? Wheelbarrow?

Tom

4

Covered hoppers are pretty new–in the 30s and 40s maybe an uncovered hopper or a gondola. A hopper would be unloaded like any other hopper–dump it out the bottom! A gondola would be unloaded by shoveling it or using some sort of mechanical unloader–Walthers makes an old-fashioned portable conveyor that would be good for that sort of thing.

5

Tank cars could be either unloaded from the top or the bottom, either by putting a hose through the top hatch and pumped out, or attaching the hose to a bottom drain. My impression is that, at least during the mid-20th century, the first option was most popular as it didn’t depend on how the tank car was equipped.

6

Faked me out with the new topic title, you sly dog. Threw me right off the track.

All the sand bins I have seen are located right alongside the supply track.

You have more options with your diesel storage tank. If space is tight and you’d like to locate a bit away from the supply track and the diesel filling hoses, all you need to do is assume the diesel is pumped out of the tankcar (assuming you want to deliver by tankcar) to the storage tank. If you want you could model a small (very) electric pump and flex hose (to connect to the tankcar) alongside the supply track. Pump discharge line turns down into the ground and you can assume it is piped underground to the storage tank. Likewise, the return line from the tank to the fueling station would be assumed to be piped underground.

At least that’s my story, and I’m sticking to it.

Regards

Ed

7

I did some digging for you and hope this might help if you can get your hands on a copy … MR May 1990 it’s on the cover … it will answer a lot of your questions. And I have two more on facilities answering you oil needs and will get them to you, I just have to dig them out, but this will get you started. have fun and good luck

8

Back in the early 50s I was puzzled at what appeared to be dirty water being poured into an engine dome on the Newfoundland Railway (just after the CN takeover, but before the end of steam). It was brown sand, of course, being loaded by hand with a bucket! I didn’t stay long enough to see where it came from, but I suspect it was from a covered bin.

9

Diesel fuel is handled in alot of different set-ups. At Elkhart, IN fuel is delivered by pipeline, tank car or truck to a point about 200 feet from the storage tank. The trucks have their own 500 GPM pump, but the unloading skid has a 1,000 GPM pump for tank cars, and the truckers like to use it instead to suck the fuel out of their trucks quicker. The distance from the storage tanks to the mainline fuel rack is about a mile, which means on the day we opened the facility, we pumped over 5,000 gallons before we got the first drop into a locomotive.

At Enola, PA the storage tanks were on the Harrisburg side of the Susquehanna River and were filled by pipeline. The fuel was then pumped over a mile across the river to Enola yard. There were also storage tanks at Enola yard that could be filled by trucks pulling off Route 11/15 and “pumping” it downhill into the storage tanks. I believ that they put in a better truck unloading skid at Enola last year and turned off the pipeline.

At the old Collinwood PC/CR yard the trucks could unload right at the storage tanks at either end of the yard, but then the fuel was pumped about a half mile to the fuel rack at the east end of the yard.

It’s best to have the unloading skid close to the storage tank and the storage tank close to the fuel rack. The less pipe you have, the less potential for leaks, but since most yards were laid out in the steam era, diesel fueling was squeezed in where it would fit.

In some areas all the piping is kept above ground, and in some it is buried. Again, whatever fits.

10

In Janesville, WI at the WSOR there is an underground tank. I think it’s 10,000 gallon capacity. Fuel is trucked in, fairly often. An SD40-2 fuel tank is 4000 gallons.