the mine that is next to my neiborhood uses the sulfuric acid all the time right now i can walk out my front door and i can see about 70 to 90 40 foot chemical tanks… up close that all say sulfuric acid… and every night one of the local shortline railroads comes and takes several tanks to the BNSF transfer station and then it goes to south texas
A few years ago, Mainline Modeler (if I remember correctly) had an article about transfering sulfuric acid from tankcars to trucks in order to spray on the potato fields after the harvest. if you do not have much room, this might be a good idea, depending on where your layout is supposed to be located.
Hi mopac57
Have you though about having a nickle smelter on the layout this could be the originator of the acid to go somewhere else to be diluted.
The nickle smelter acid plant would be producing acid that is so concentrated it cannot eat the steel tanker.
Dont ask me how that works I am not a chemistry expert I just know tha stuff produced at the local smelter is just like that so concentrated it cannot eat the tank cars.
It runs in a train of its own here which is a loco barrier cars then acid cars which come from the smelter to the local yard the go where ever it is they go.
So maybe it could go smelter to yard then yard to staging
You can always use it for through traffic. You don’t have to have an industry on your layout to justify the car.
Yes, Paper Mills. Ya gotta love paper mills for model railroading. If there is a nasty chemical, rest assured a paper mill probably receives it (sulphur, caustic soda, chlorine, etc, etc…or ships it out (turpentine, “black liquor”). Not to mention boxcars and boxcars of paper rolls and incoming wood chip hoppers by the trainload. Nothing beats a paper mill for variety of freight. Or the smell.
Folks:
I forgot about this but just remembered it: a major customer of the narrow-gauge Waynesburg & Washington (in southwest PA, near Pittsburgh) was a tin plate mill, and they received carloads of acid. This was shipped in large glass ‘carboys’ (in wood gondola cars, I think) until the W & W built a tank car for this service. Just one, too…the mill wasn’t a huge one, as you can surmise.