Only had a short time - but got to watch some trains. Picked up the following:
I know they run some strange stuff over the railroads, but one I didn’t need my book to figure out was a tanker marked Molten Sulpher. That sounds horrible. What do they do with it?
SHPX had suction tubes on a bottom dump. Why? (Driver said they were suction tubes - I just thought they were pipes…)
SD39 and B23-7 brought a short freight into yards. Uncoupled and backed up into throat of yard. Then looked like a Chinese Fired Drill. Both men got off head engine and walked back to 2nd engine and got on. (The SD39 was the rear one and the B23-7 was the head-end at that point - just the opposite of how they came into the yard) Couldn’t they just “back up”? It was only two engines. I am sure I am missing something here, but then, that’s why I come here for answers.
Sulpher, like most elements comes in 3 forms, vapor, solid, or liquid, depending upon the temperature and pressure. Molten is one of the liquid forms (or it wouldn’t be in a tank car). I see unit trains of the stuff coming out of Chicago and heading south and east, so I don’t know what industry receives it. Sulpher is an additive to steel to make it easier to machine, and I believe it is also added to rubber for tires, yet I see loads going away from those industries[%-)]
The tank car could just be a general purpose car, so it has the capability to (un)load from either the top or bottom, depending upon what equipment the customer has and the liquid being transported.
The fire drill you witnessed was probably due to the fact that the crew was going to go the other way for a while. For safety’s sake (and I believe, by law) the crew wants to be in the lead unit to get an unobstructed view of the line (crossings, signals, traspassers, etc.) ahead.
By the way, I was playing around with Train Dispatcher the other day and stumbled upon a Lincoln to Ravenna simulation. How many trains a day do they run on that line? The only way I could keep things moving was to run everything into sidings and then run fleets of 6 or more at a time.
Mook, I too see molten sulphur cars once in a while here on the BNSF main and lots of other types of hazerdous cargo that really makes me kind of nervous being relatively close to the tracks while railfanning…one wrong move and those of us watching couldn’t get out of the way fast enough…bet that made all of you feel just a little bit safer, no joke intended, just be sure you are within a safe distance of the tracks while railfanning and that you can “get out” when you need to in a hurry.
Hi Mookie,
rrnut had it right, the crew most likely were going to take a train back the way they just came from, or run the motors “light” back home, they would want to be on the lead unit if it was more than a mile or two.
Sulpher, yeck, those cars stink, smells like rotten eggs.
Steel, some fuel, medicines, explosives, gunpowder and rubber are just a few uses for the stuff.
It is loaded hot, in a liquid or “molten” state, when it cools, it hardens, just like the stuff on a match head.
The pipes under the car were most likely steam inlet and outlet pipes, they connect to steam lines that run around the inside of the tank, to let the guys who unload this stuff heat it back up so it melts(becomes molten) and will flow more easily out of the discharge valve.
The tanks are insulated, so this stuff will stay molten for a long time, but if it does cool down, there is no way to get it out of the tank till you reheat it.
And you cant ship it in anything but a tankcar, or it will become contaminated.
If you ground it up into a powder, and shipped it that way, it would absorb moisture from the air.
These cars are used only for sulpher loading, and are marked or labled such.
Cant remember who, but one tankcar lessor painted their fleet of sulpher cars the same shade of gross yellow the sulpher is, I guess to hide the slop over on the sides…
I dont know the exact temp, but the stuff becomes molten at a fairly low temp, under 200f degrees, you could melt it in a pan on your stove, if you could stand the smell and the fumes.
Some of the sulphur winds up as the smell you get in your gas service. (it doesn’t come out of the ground smelling that way)…SD-39? (Santa Fe had 20, BN had zilch…my buddies from Raton Pass are still around withthe SD-26’s already long gone??? a slug mother got loose?)
I sit at the east end of the yard and they run those Lincoln to Ravenna/Hastings trains out the west end. But they do run a lot. Don’t quote me, but I think they run all the coal trains through that line. It is definitely a main line. Saturday they ran about 8 trains out the east side in less than an hour. Only reason I sit on east end is because there is not much place to park on the west end. Maybe someone can help us out with approximate #'s on this.
Maybe a re-painted Santa Fe? I have a list that I printed off that tells me what the engine is by the number. Maybe my list is incorrect? I wrote it down very carefully, but didn’t write down the engine #. Will watch for it, since we see that B23-7 or one like it frequently. Will start taking better notes. And if someone has a good website for engine #'s and types with it, let me know.
I’m pretty sure that some agricultural use accounts for the larger volumes that we see here (I’ve seen a few unit trains on UP, but I suspect that other railroads haul more of those than we do, at least through Chicago). One destination I’ve seen very often is Hopewell, Virginia, which can apparently be reached via both NS and CSX.
Ed’s got the correct answers about the cars theselves, though I should point out that I have seen sulfur transported in open-top cars before. I’m sure that tank cars are the preferred method, though (and it’s been a long time since I’ve seen it in hoppers!).
That’s a covered hopper; right? Somewhat longer than a normal grain hopper?
If so; I’ve seen the same kind in Springfield OR. I believe they are a modern version of an airslide hopper. (One of the experts can give both of us a better explanation of what they are used for/how they work.)
The spelling in common U.S. useage today is sulfur.
Most sulfur (86% as of 1992, the last data I have) is used for making sulfuric acid, by far the broadest-use industrial chemical in the world because it’s cheap and an extremely powerful acid. Sulfuric acid use is regarded as one of the most accurate indexes of a nation’s industrial development.
Principal uses of sulfuric acid are (not in order):
steel making, to pickle (clean scale and oxidation) off steel in preparation for rolling, galvanizing, heat-treating, and tinning
oil refining, as an organic reagent to reform hydrocarbons and to dissolve impurities
fertilizer making, to treat phosphate rock to form phosphoric acid, superphosphate, and triple superphosphate (this is the largest use by volume)
ore processing, to leach metallic elements from the worthless country rock (principally copper)
All manner of chemical processes.
Paper-making (sulfide and sulfate papers, such as Kraft paper)
And of course, lead-acid batteries.
Sulfur sources include native deposits, principally cap-deposits on salt domes along the Gulf Coast and in co-location with gypsum evaporate basins in Texas, Iraq, Poland, and Russia; sulfide ores of copper, lead, zinc, and silver; sour natural gas, and petroleum sands. Sour natural gas is becoming the biggest North American source, from processing plants in the Western U.S. and Canada.
Charlie, if you smell sulfur in natural gas (it’s in the form of hydrogen sulfide, a deadly poison gas) it’s because it was inadequately purified, not because it was added. Sulfur in natural gas corrodes pipes terribly, as well as being poisonous, so it’s removed. In the past, sour natural gas was avoided by the oil companies, but with the prices and supplies the way they are now, they have bitten the bullet and built processing plants.
By the way, the quantity of hydrogen sulfide in natural gas sold for use in y
That awful smell you associate with natural gas and propane is definitely added - exactly so you will smell it. Hydrogen sulfide notwithstanding, NG and LP have no odor.
Agreed, Mark…it’s “sulfur” in the U.S. But check out those tank cars…you’ll find a lot of them come from Canada, and are stenciled “sulphur”. “Sulphuric Acid” cars are also pretty common in these parts, even though the reporting marks are American.
Molten Sulfur used to not be a hazardous material. One day a truck of it had a wreck on the Carquinez Strait bridge between Benecia and Martinez CA. Broke open the flimsy truck tank. The sulfur was hot enough to burn, and it did quite spectacularly. Of course it made a big column of Sulfur Dioxide smoke. Sulfur dioxide is most unpleasant to breathe cause it becomes Suluric Acid in your lungs. Get much and your lungs bleed and you die from pulmonary edema.
The odorant in LPG and pipline gas is methyl mercaptan. Is about a quart of mercaptan in a 30,000 gallon net propane car.
Thank you - I will print them off - We do see some NS and CSX thru here, so it will be nice to have some #'s for them.
Poor MIllie will have to go from a small Buick to a station wagon when I get all the paper I have printed off in her to go train watch! RR cops will call me in as an industrial hazard - car filled with paper!