Good evening everybody,
Could anybody tell me what do thease tankers carry and where do they come from?
I would also like to know where do the loaded tankcars go to and what the facility do they go to(how many tracks and what the facility looks like)?
Safety Kleen cars handle spent parts washer fluid, used oil, things like that… The take the old waste product, clean it, rerefine if needed and then send it out for reuse.
I butted heads with them often enough when I was with the Louisiana Dept. of Environmental Quality.
Were they not good environmental citizens? $ above enviroment?
Mook
Lets put it this way - When I first started with LDEQ, they had some good people woring for them, you could get a problem fixed with a phone call. Then they were bought out by Laidlaw. They were a crummy outfit, lot of problems. Not long after that the good people started to leave for other jobs. Their replacements couldn’t find their ******** with both hands and a roadmap.
Ah - unfortunately an all too common problem!
Well, Kevin… I think perhaps it depends a little on which corner of the country one is in. Up here in the northeast corner we’ve not had that much trouble with the Safety-Kleen folks – but then, we have a lot less chemical industry to deal with. Around here, though, they carry quite a bit of spent solvent, which is a hazardous material.
Junction – the only real way to tell what one of those tankers is carrying is to look for a red diamond-shape label on the side of the car, and take the number off it and look it up. For instance, the number 1710 would indicate Trichloroethylene (a rather common solvent), while 2831 would be 1,1,1-Trichloroethane – and even more common solvent. And so on…
Spent solvent was the problem. Let me explain:
LDEQ regulates EVERYONE, except household, as far as haz waste in concerned. There are no conditionally exempt small quantity genereators. Everyone pays.
An example:
Bob is real good with engines and opens a engine repair shop. The SK salesman goes by and tell the guy that he will let him try out a parts washer. He must fill out a HW-!, a notifacation for and send it to LDEQ along with the registration fee - !0 bucks (it has gone up due to fee increases, but I’ll use 10). One problem was that the Salesman was forging the HW-1. We would find out this when the annual maintence fees notices went out and I got an totally PO’ed person on the phone. The other problem was that even if SK did not forge the HW-1 was that they didn’t tell them about the yearly fee. Another phone call. See the problem? It could get ugly real fast. Or after the fees went out, we would get a call from Bob’s wife, she does the books, wanting to know why she was getting a generator fee when they get their electric from the local electric company. I would get the job explaining to her that is was not an electric fee, but a fee because the business generated haz waste. Trust me, these phone calls happen.
Thankfully, these days a lot of businesses use solvents that are not classified as haz waste when they are spent and replaced. I did this at all my plants.
Which industries in particular will you find thease tankers? Any industry names in particular that often have many of them in their sidings?
My stepdad used to work for Safety-Kleen up here in Wisconsin. They never dealt with tankers but I have seen a few. I’m sure he knows quite a bit about these cars. He also painted up 500 of them in HO scale and they all sold to people in Wisconsin. They are indeed very noticeable.
One car passed through Fond DuLlac, Wi yesterday,on a Southbound CN train.It had ACFX reporting marks on the side of the car.The car was lettered saying it was for " Fluid Recycling Services ".
I’ve seen several of thease yellow tankers in ACFX, PROX, UTLX, GATX, and SAFX.
Seen them at Hollyhill SC at the cement plant lots of them.
Laidlaw operates several bus systems in southern Ca.,and other cities as well.A friend who works for the Orange County system has told me many horror stories about Laidlaw. Appearently they can’t tell their “donkey” from a hole in the ground[:(!].
What do you suppose they are for?
Who makes these tankers, haven’t heard or really seen these tankers?
Since their bankrupcey Laidlaw is no longer associated with Safety Kleen. The split happened in early 2003.
The cars at the cement plant are probably being used for fuel to fire the kelin. Many of their other rail shipments wind up in the Chicago area where the oil is cleaned up and resold as lube oil.