Greeting from Australia!
I have an N scale Atlas 11,000 Gallon Tank Car in ‘Warren Petroleum’ Tusla Oklahoma livery with a build date December 1947.
When did LPG start to be used by industry and was it just as a fuel or did it serve as a feed stock for some other industrial process?
Thankyou
Celestialsphere
LPG isn’t used in industry that I know of. I t goes to a station where it is allowed to revert back to a gas. Every one I know of is run by the gas companies. It is just a way to move a much larger quanitity of gas then could be done in the gaseous state.
Sorta like liquidfying some gases under very cold temperatures so you can haul the stuff.
I have a pair of these cars in HO under the Union markings (Gold and black with the white cap) and was wondering what I should do with these in a over all industrial operation?
The unloading stations aren’t very big so you could add one as an industry. Basically you need a siding or two, a hose connection to unload the cars and a SMALL buiding that contains a heater to gasify the LPG. The building should be about 20’ x20’. You also need some pipline coming out of the ground into the building and maybe a big pressure regulator or two. Every one I can think of has 1" stone for the ground cover and a Cylcone fence around it. They are kept spotless and usually everything is painted white.
So… one of these serving factories near by may do the trick.
LPG is also used as a fuel for forklift trucks. We had several of these at one of my former employeers. We had a large storage tank on the premises for refilling their fuel tanks.
Just a thought, but do you have LPG bottling plants over there? We can buy LPG by the cylinder (you get money back when you return the cylinder, effectively you’re just renting it) for use in gas fires, cooking, etc - it’s particularly popular for motorhomes and caravans (our motorhome has two hefty cylinders in a locker with an outside door, which power heating, cooking, and the fridge in the event of not having mains electric or being able to use the 12v supply). I’ve seen photos of the bottling plants, which are basically large warehouses that have empty cylinders delivered, which are then inspected, repaired and repainted if necessary, refilled, and sent back out. If these are also found in the US it would make in interesting industry - you’d have not only LPG coming in in bulk, but also truckloads of empty cylinders in and full ones out.
While ethylene, propylene, and butadiene are normally derived from natural gas, LPG is also used as a feedstock. Also, it is not uncommon to see LPG tankcars go loaded or empty to oil refineries or natural gas liquids (NGL) plants/fractionation plants. Furthermore, LPG is usually sent to underground storage when demand is low.
There is one near me, it is as you described… a small warehouse and a few tanks.
City tractor trailers take cylinders to and from industrial customers.
I have been eyeing the walthers gas works for some time.
You might be interested to know that Gulf Refining Co. acquired Warren Petroleum of Tulsa OK in exchange-of-stock deal, according to Business Week magazine Nov.19, 1955 p.66. So how does this affect us modelers? The deal included Gulf’s acqusition of Warren’s 4300 car tankcar fleet.
Many kept the WRNX reporting marks even when repainted with Gulf logos. So you could have both Gulf and Warren tankcars serving a Gulf or Warren facility after 1955.
A little more history - That was back in the time, Tulsa was known as the Oil Capitol of the World. Mainly because a number of the oil compaines had ties in around the city, for one reason are another…
Propane is used for motor fuel, trucks and also farm tractors. In the late 1950’s I worked for a local distributor in North Dakota. Our product came from the Standard Oil refinery at Mandan N D by tanker truck, 8-10,000 gallons at a time… Trucks N Stuff has a model of an LPG tanker. Later the storage tank was moved to railroad property so we could get tank car delivery. We sold propane in bulk to be used for home and business heating, and also 100 pound cylinders for cooking and water heating, and small residential heaters. We owned the cylinders, and delivered them to the customers.
On farm use was for tractors, and also grain dryers as well as heating. Usually 500 or 1000 gallon tanks on the farms. I have a daughter and son-in-law on the farm, they have 2-1000 gallon tanks, and heat the house, 2 hog barns, and also a dryer used for drying wet corn after harvest.
And gas grills!!!
underworld
Easter Easter Easter Easter Easter!!!
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Shortly after WWI the cotton mill industry was looking for an economical way to heat dyed cloth. The answer was LP gas. The problem was there was no way to store or transport it at the time. A mechanic who worked at the Carlton Yarn Mills in Cherryville NC developed a valve which allowed for this and a patent was obtained under the name Rulane Gas Co. Ru for Rudisill who owned the Carlton mill, La for Lanier who was the patent attorney, and Ne for Neal the mechanic. These valves were first manufactured at the Cherryville foundry and left town on the Seaboard Air Line. When LP gas was new, Rulane had the rights for distributorship throughout the entire US.
State by state the rights were sold off quickly for operating cash.
LPG is also known as propane. It is produced in oil refineries as an end product. From the processing units it is piped to and stored in “bullets,” long horizontal cylinders with rounded ends. From there it can be pressured into tank cars or trucks for shipping. In areas not served by natural gas, it is often used in gas fireplaces.
There are in fact two types - Propane and Butane. Butane operates at a lower pressure (so can have easier-fit connectors - changing a Butane cylinder just needs you to unclip the regulator and clip it onto the new cylinder, Propane needs a spanner to change cylinders). The snag is that Butane freezes at low temperatures - not much use when you wake up in a freezing cold motorhome and want to fire up the heater, then discover the gas has frozen in the cylinder and nothing happens! Over here, most use Butane though for obvious reasons Propane is popular in colder areas and in mainland Europe.
Matt:
Neither Propane nor Butane “freezes” in cold weather, they simply remain in liquid form which neither burns nor flows. I have a propane heater in my garage that is fed by an outdoor 20 lb. propane gas grill tank. When the temperatures fall below about 35 degrees Farenheit, I have to use a hair dryer (1875 watt) to defrost the regulator and then heat up the top of the tank. This procedure takes a maximum of 20 to 30 seconds. Afterwhich, I can start the heater. Once the heater is lit, I can shut off the hairdryer and the heater will continue to operate regardless of the outside temperature.
A propane dealer told me that Propane liquifiies at -40 degrees (F), but he did not take into account that the system has a 10 PSI regulator on it. This raises the boiling point of the liquid to about 32 degrees just as the pressure cap on an automobile radiator raises the boiling point of water from 212 F to 250 F.
Thanks for clearing that up - my dad always refers to the gas “freezing”, I did think it was a bit odd given the physics involved!
Matt:
Your dad might still be right. Water in gasoline (petrol) can still freeze solid and stop the flow of fuel to the engine. Gas Line antifreeze chemically combines with the water in the fuel to prevent it from freezing solid and blocking or splitting the fuel line due to the expansion of water when it freezes. This is why you need antifreeze in the engine coolant as well. The freezing water can crack the block of the engine.