In my travels today, I saw some tank cars that got me to wondering. There is a local tank farm that is on a pipeline. It consists of a few big tanks, an office, and a big fueling tower type structure for filling semi tankers with gasoline. All day long, trucks come and go. It also has a rail siding that always has tank cars in it. The cars are long, and black. Today, there was UTLX 643344 & SRIX 80246 spotted on the siding. What would be hauled in, or out(?) of a facility like that? Note: the nearest ethanol plant is only about 20 minutes away. There are 5 within an hour’s drive by truck.
Accross from the tank farm, is a grain elevator that loads unit grain trains. There is usually fertilzer in big, white tanks cars there. Today, there are smallish, black tankcars. UTLX #125113 & 125029. Any guess on what would ship in those type tank cars to a grain elevator?
Are the tank cars placarded (a cardboard sign in a diamond [like baseball] shaped holder)? If so, can you get close enough to read the four digits on the placard? What colors are the placards? Are there any graphics (eg. fire) on the placards? Depending on the contents, most tank cars are placarded for explosives, flammables, oxidizers, poisons, corrosives, etc… Even oxygen and non-flammable gas cars will have signage. House cars, too, may be placarded if they carry explosives, radioactive material, or other solid stuff. Most train crews won’t move non-placarded cars that show dangerous loads on their wheel report. Corn sweetener, etc., gets a ‘bye’. Some tank cars will have the contents stenciled on them, eg. “Anhydrous Ammonia” (nasty stuff!) or “Liquified Petroleum Gas” “Haz Mat” laws are strange, and getting stranger.
You can download the current Emergency Response Guide (orange book) at http://www.phmsa.dot.gov/hazmat/library/erg. It’s free and works just as well for trucks on the highways.
Once you download it, you’ll see an explanation of how to read the placards, as well as a listing of virtually all chemicals being shipped today, by UN number and by name. The last section of the ERG tells first responders how to handle an incident involving a spill. It’s good for about the first 10 minutes of the response, after which you’ll want more resources on the way.
You might be able to scarf an older hard copy from your local emergency services folks. They actually don’t change much, and for the railfan or other simply interested party, they’ll work just fine.
In response to the initial question: Ammonia, Natural Gas (Propane) or Bulk Liquid fertilizer? Some of us could look at the hose cranes and how the transfer on the industry track is set up, but there is not enough info to generate a reliable answer. Placcards do not always answer all the baSIC questions.
Norris, after you’ve seen the same type of car often enough, you get a rough idea of what commodity (or group of commodities) are carried in this type of car.
At the risk of getting a “Wow” from Mr. Zug, I’ll suggest that the SRIX car carries asphalt or other such material (it will have “Hot” markings on it). The UTLX 125000-series cars are usually for sulfuric acid. The big, white tank cars would usually carry anhydrous ammonia, if you see them at a fertilizer plant.
Like has been mentioned, asphalt, tallow, fertilizer, it all gets carried in tanks. Just take a look at the placards, and unloading racks. If they have towers over the tracks, then it’s probably a gas (propane, butane, chlorine). If there’s pans underneath the tracks, then it’s probably a liquid (ethanol, fertilizer, etc).
Not ruling it out, but I have yet to load a car with Propane or Butane that is not a 33,000 gallon car. I looked up the outage table for UTLX 643344 and it shows it as a 23,000 gallon car.
Also, I looked up some photos and found some car numbers fairly close to the cars in question. Neither had the dome on top with the Load, Vapor, and Safety Valves.
Almost definitely, Eric! Hard to get former numbers off them, though.
Yes, the UTLX tank car was not for gas or ammonia–since it was with the SRIX car, I assumed asphalt as well, but didn’t take the time to see if I’d seen anything from the same series, if not this car itself.
My guess would be gasoline additives. SOme fuel facilities get the additives in single commodity tanks, other smaller ones sometimes get 2-3 compartment tanks for multiple additives. Just a guess, could just be an unloading facility too, or a cleaning facility. Many times seperate types of bussiness are owned by the same company, or lease out old equipment that a new tenant uses.
There’s always a possibility (probably not a high one, though) that the cars are not for the tank farm owner per se, but they are loaning (renting) out space for another customer without rail access. We once took a tank car up to an industrial park that only gets the occasional boxcar. They brought in pumps and unloaded it. Or it could be an additive… if you could spy the placards and more specifically, find the number on it, a quick google search will yield results.
If they weren’t spotted up, there is also a small possibility that they were shop cars, set off by a thru-freight to await the repair truck. But again, chances of that are pretty slim (esp. since you had two of them at each industry).