I am trying to enhance operations on my layout The Staten Island West RY (Reporting Marks SIW) a freelanced RR.
The SIW has 2 GE 70 Ton switchers that service the local industries and assemble trains which are then sent to New Jersey via Chessie/Conrail GP38’s for shipment elsewhere.
It occurred to me that the switchers need to be fueled and perhaps minor service done (Major Overhauls etc are outsourced) so I am adding a fueling depot, actually an extra siding with tanks etc.
I am trying to figure out how often the GE’s should duck in for fuel is it once a day or to railroads track MPG or hours of service.
Specifically useful here are a couple points that help specifically with 70-tonners on a shortline. The fuel tanks have to be smaller than those on most diesels mentioned in that thread. You can look the capacity up somewhere and that will help you estimate.
Diesel are often left to idle, especially in cold weather, even if not operating. A short line might instead have a small enginehouse to keep a loco warm in, so may not idle so much. Sounds like yours is rather busy, so might idle anyway. In any case, an idling diesel uses a very small amount of fuel, but it adds up.
How busy your line is will make a difference, as its the load on a diesel that causes it to use more fuel.
I’d say once a week as many noted in the other thread is about right as a WAG. It would almost certainly not be everyday for a small loco on a relatively limited mileage switching or short line.
Our yard engines have 2000 gallon tanks. They get used roughly 2 shifts per day (one of those shifts usually 10-12 hours long).
Fuel man comes once a week. Every once in a while an engine will be out somewhere and doesn’t get fueled. You may be able to squeak an extra week out of it, but it will be on fumes, and won’t be allowed to venture outside of the yard (usually). The powers to be may call for an “extra” fuel man run, or the engine will get parked somewhere until the regular fuel man comes again.
A small shortline with only 2 locos might not need a fully dedicated fueling facilty but might just have the fuel man fill the locos directly from the truck once or twice a week. So I am thinking that perhaps a shed with possible a small tank or two (as an emergency supply) might do.
A strip of Asphalt and perhaps a small engine shed (for servicing and cold weather storage) could simulate this with perhars a tanker truck droping in periodically would simulate this.
Of course you are right but the original poster indicated that he was afixin to/wanted to install some sort of an on-site fueling facility. Depending upon his ongoing fuel needs that may be a waste of assets and it might be more in his interests to service his lokes from a mobile delivery source.
Years ago I was working for a courier service and I had an every Friday/as required at other times construction company drop. If I was running on schedule I inevitable encountered a fuel truck filling underground tank/tanks at the rear of the storage yard; I don’t recall ever having encountered this fuel truck on any other day of the week except on Fridays. I once commented on this singular fact to one of the clerks in the office and I was told that, depending on usage, they would sometimes require an unscheduled fuel drop but they tried to avoid this because of the additional expense involved.
If the OP were going to have his units serviced from a delivery vehicle it would be in his interest to have this done on a scheduled basis.
(I KNOW! I KNOW! This is a moot point on a model railroad where our vehicles tend to stay in place; but if this OP is at all interested in photography he might want to pose his 70 tonners on a service track with the fuel delivery vehicle alongside and then remove it at other times.)
That was what I was thinking, but I hated to tell someone with a spanking new fueling facility that he should tear it out…
[;)]
Having a contractor pull up the fuel truck as needed is the option that makes most sense for a small outfit. That way you can make the siding into an industry that might be more useful in your operating scheme.
A fuel contractor can be called out needed, so you can make whatever arrangements you want to have that happen depending on how you operate.
The comment about keeping the tank full for tractive effort makes sense if there’s no extra cost to doing that, i.e. a RR-owned fueling facility. On the other hand, I suspect calling a contractor to send a truck out to top things off every day would probably result in some irritation and extra expense.
First of all I am the original poster, Second The Fueling Facillity has not been build yet. It is a conceptual idea at this point to add to small extension I am putting on my layout. Based on what I have learned from this thread the truck will visit the locos about twice a week on the new siding.
I have a couple of DVDs about short line railroads that show switchers being refueled from old gasoline-station type pumps that get fuel from a nearby above ground tank, so your fueling facility could be something like that. The narrative in the videos doesn’t say, but the pump could actually have been modified to be gravity fed rather than having an electric motor in it.
Picky but any pad around fuel would be concrete or earth. Asphalt would get sticky or greasy. Ever notice concrete around gas pumps in a fillling station?
joe323 I believe you would be opening a can of worms to do your own fueling from an on site fueling station. Reasons being !!! What ever the storage capacity is of your tanks if they are above ground, you will need a containment facility of the full capacity of your tanks per EPA regulations. To fill the tanks, to receive the best price for fuel and delivery a private fuel service contractor with an 8000 thousand gal tanker truck would be in order. A tough call. Back to how often to fuel the 70 toner’s. Depends on the amount of freight being shoved in a given time. I would op for a private fuel service contractor on as needed. Just my thoughts. !!!l loco6625
If one is talking about the usual containment/spill mitigation we expect nowadays around fuel facilities, then you’re talking about relatively recent prototypes. Until 1970-1973, all sorts of hazardous, polluting, and plain wasteful practices could be found around the RR when it came to fueling. It was the twin events of more respect for the environment and rising energy costs that led to the sort of facilities that are familiar around us now.
Having worked in fleet maintenance for heavy trucks, the gov’t didn’t really start cracking down on leaky fueling sites until the 1980s, as well as starting to require new facilities meet improved standards. Lots of folks had to invest considerable sums in either retrofitting or building new. This was also when funding started to be available for remediation work at sites like the buried tanks typically found around gas stations.
This also is why many shortlines took to using contractors to supply fuel directly from their trucks to fuel units as needed. It’s an expensive proposition to build a fueling facility now, so using a mobile contractor to do this makes a lot of financial sense. Parking a fuel truck next to a siding can easily represent the modern day fueling facilities on a shortline.
It’s not quite anything goes before the mid-70s, but that does make a good dividing line in terms of applying era-specific design and details to your fueling facilities.