The current issue of Trains Magazine, March 2017 talks a bit about the plastic industry in the USA being much healthier due to some changes in the energy markets. I have a few questions that the railroaders and chemist types on here might be able to answer.
Do the plastic pellets being hauled in covered hoppers heavier than comparable volumes of grain?
The article says that fracking has allowed a lot more natural gas to be recovered. The byproducts from that natural gas are used for making plastics, driving the price down. What are the byproducts? If the byproducts aren’t used for making plastics, what do they do with them?
Norris, I’d have to say “no” to your question. Plastic pellets nowadays are hauled in larger covered hoppers (5800 cu.ft. and above), as opposed to grain (5400 cu.ft. and below). Both types, when fully loaded, would probably approach the 286,000-pound gross rail load (GRL).
Murphy S: While not a chemist, and did not stay in a Holiday Inn, I did work for a plastic container mfg for over 10 years. Our feed stock was HDPE pellets (High Density Polyethelene Pellets). That was a product that used a product made from a fractional cracking process gas- ethelene gas. We manufactured poly containers(HDPE) used to hold agricultural chemicals, and food ingredients, we also poneered the 5 gal square plactic container, and its’ use, as well. I’ll let someone else go into the other plastics, and how they are made.
We get train car loads of plastic pellets mix them for our customers and ship them all over the eastern 2/3’s of the USA. Plastic pellet weight depends on the resin it is made from the size of the granule and some other factors. One of the heaviest is actually unexpanded polystyrene foam pellets. Those will weigh out in any trailer we pull them in before we cube out. PET HDPE LDPEand PETE are lightwieght our trailers end up cubed out before we weigh out sometimes. They have figured out how to make the feedstocks from Natural gas itself which is lower cost than getting it from other feed stock normally crude oils.
Yes my views are not welcomed here by some due to my profession aka I work for the enemy according to some. However I deal with the BNSF on a weekly basis to make sure our empties get switched out and our loads that are replacing them are spotted where they are needed. Yet I am accused of being someone else because of how I write. The reason why I write like I do is simple I am so used to sending Qualcom messages that have to be short and to the point so my drivers can see it on a 4 line screen. So if I am making people mad about my wording tough deal with it. You do not manage help manage 250 drivers without having a very thick skin. I have been called a lot worse by the drivers of the company I work for than you can think of.
Write anyway you like, last I looked no-one here has been appointed to the grammar police.
As a matter of fact, I’d hope no-one would be intimidated into not commenting because they think their language skills aren’t what they should be. What fun would that be? We could be missing out on a lot of expertise and wisdom.
“Ginger the Basset’s Owner,” aka Firelock76
PS: Anyone gets abusive of you, you leave them to me. People can call me anything they like, I’ve probably been called worse, but I won’t stand personal abuse of anyone else here.
The major by-products of natural gas (which is mostly methane) are so-called “Natural Gas Liquids” (NGLs): ethane (the major one), propane, butane, isobutane, and pentane. At ordinary temperature and pressure, they are gases. They readily liquefy under high pressure and are usually transported as liquids in pipelines.
They are all considered chemical feedstocks, such as for making plastics, but propane and butane are also used as fuels.
If there is not a ready market for the ethane (primarily as raw material for plastic (it is “cracked” to ethylene for that purpose)), it can be “rejected” (mixed) back into the methane stream and burned as fuel (“natural gas”).
While the “Trains” article focused on Gulf Coast production, it is interesting to note that as least two ethane “crackers” (multi-billion dollar plants) are in the advanced engineering/construction-decision process in the Pittsburgh, PA./eastern Ohio region. They will, potentially, take advantage of the low-cost, NGL-rich, natural gas produced by fracking in the Marcellus and Utica shale fields. Good news for CSX and NS.
https://www.google.com/maps/@29.7239239,-95.1782511,1969m/data=!3m1!1e3
Google maps link to the Phillip’s plastic plant in Pasadena Tx…the yard dead center full of covered hoppers is Phillips private yard, it is split almost evenly between inbound and out bound, (empties in, loads out), they make plastic pellets of the kind of plastic used to make grocery bags.
We, the PTRA, haul a loaded train out of there every shift.
If you pan west or left, you will see out Pasadena yard, where BNSF and UP interchange with us.
We used to have a few posters whose grammar and spelling was atrocious, but whose knowledge of the industry was first hand and first rate. Very few forum members took offense.
On the other hand, we’ve had some very articulate doofuses.
It’s what you write, not usually how you write it. Post On!
One material in the polythene “family”, Ultra High Molecular Weight Polyethylene, has truly remarkable properties. It has the highest impact resistance of any plastic, is chemically unreactive, is highly abrasion resistant and is similar to PTFE in its self-lubricating properties. It is used in body armour as an alternative to Kevlar. The raw material used in making it is ethylene, derived from natural gas.
No doubt this very tough material could be used in railroad and other transport applications. It might be used, for example, for the bodies of cars which transport grain.
(Cheap and plentiful raw material) + (large potential market) = (rapid growth rate of the industry making the product). Good news for railroads moving plastic pellets from manufacturers to industrial consumers.