Irritating, had my message all written then lost my dail up connection. Here goes again.
Am just finishing up a small oil dealership, but it has no provisions for unloading tank cars or loading trucks. I am in HO, early to mid-50’s, but the dealer could have been around since the late 30’s.
I have seen the more modern racks, but for this era I’m not sure they had such at a small facility. Do the cars unload from the bottom into a hydrant by the tracks? Hose on a rack of some sort to keep it off the ground when not in use? At most hook ups for unloading two cars.
For loading trucks, did they use a standpipe (like a water column) with a short section of hose to fill from the top or did they pump it into the bottom? Hose storage similar set up as the unloading hose? I’ve seen plenty of trucks unloading at gas stations and home heating deliveries, but never seen them filled. Don’t remember the piping on the trucks back then, wasn’t thinking about modeling them at the time.
Truck loading was from a nozzle on the front platform.
This bottom picture is a Naval Ar Station fuel depot, the naval equivalent of a bulk oil dealer. I modeled standpipes for unloading cars from bits of brass tubing, wire and a bit of styrene for the concrete base. The platform with truck loading equipment was modeled from a photo in a 1950-something n
Surface or underground pipe would be connected to a valve at the bottom of the car’s tank via a hose. The liquid distillate would be pumped to storage tanks.
The first Industries Along The Tracks Kalmbach book has a section on petrolium in which dealers are mentioned. Might be worth picking this book up or seeing if it’s in your local library.
The tank cars unload from the bottom. For now the unloading hose is in the pump house.
The tank trucks top load using drop tubes which are in a vertical position when not in use. When loading they are hinged and are pulled down to the top of the tank. They also telescope so as to reach the tank compartments. Usually there are 5.
Creating unloading for two tank cars will eat up a lot of real estate. You might want to have a siding lenght for two but unload one at a time. My siding will accomadate a tanker and a box car.
Thanks for the nice photos. My dealer will be older, but the pictures give me some good ideas.
Was doing some business placement tonight, do think a two car track is all I will need and as you suggested, only unload one at a time.
Maybe someday the budget will allow purchase of needed “stuff” to take and post photos. Will also need some help from the other half on how to use it. (She went to school for it.)
I modeled this petroleum distributor using Grandt Line kits and misc. parts. In this instance, unloading is done from a pipe inserted through the tank dome. That assembly came with the kit. Photos of prototype installations I’ve seen were in favor with unloading from the bottom with hoses.
Cowman, my family has run a small oil business since 1931. We received product by tank car until the late 1950’s. We originally had 4 above ground tanks placed on stone piers. They were on a small hill above the track and truck loading platform. The pump to unload the tank cars was in a shed. all that was visible outside was a fence running along our siding with hose brackets bolted on to it and a 3’’ hose with a coupling on the end. Cars received were usually 8,000-10,000 gallon variety. Hose was hooked on bottom connection to tank car and dome lid was cracked to allow a vent. Pump was started and the above ground tanks were filled this way. The tanks were different sizes. 8,000 -11,000, 10,000 and 14,000 all riveted and they had been in place since at least 1912 !! Trucks were loaded at the loading rack by gravity since tanks were above the level of the loading rack. It is slower than pumping but alot cheaper to operate and maintain. All piping and loading arms were bronze to eliminate the possibility of static sparking while loading. Later on we installed larger 30,000 undergrounds that had the capability for tank car unloading but they were always filled by truck transport. Hope this helps. --Ken McCorry
Mark - time to get to the layout! I have the same problem, though I do have the layout so trains will run, no scenery yet. What did you use for fencing? Haven’t decided whether to go wood or chain link yet.
Ken - like the hill idea and there is one just behind the proposed location. 8,000 and 10,000 tank cars is what will be making the deliveries.
The chain-link fence (on the railroad side) is from Walthers, and the board fence (on the public side) is a plastic product by Central Valley. Decided to use two types to provide some variety.
This may also help. It’s FM 10-67-1 - Concepts and Equipment of Petroleum Operations, Chapter 11 - Tank Car Operations. http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/library/policy/army/fm/10-67-1/CHAP11.HTML It’s a Army manual for teaching soldiers … and Chapter 11 covers Loading and Unloading tank cars … in great detail (remember … this is to teach the kid off of the farm how to do it)
Kenmacprr pretty much said everything you need to know but if I may your building a model railroad so run a siding to the oil company. We modelers have an extreme advantage over the prototype world in that if we want track some where we just put it there. Rather then just having your small oil company be a nice static display why not make it part of your operations? By placing a siding you can now run loads in and empties out etc. If your really tight on space and can’ put in a siding there you always have the option of putting in a team track some where close by and have trucks there to unload from a tank car and drive the oil over to your storage tanks. The other nice thing about modeling is you can write or create any scenario to make a scene work.
Cowman - There’s a small-time fuel unloading facility right in your “backyard” on the WACR.
If you go to the engine house behind City Hall and the old police station, you’ll often see two tank cars placarded UN 1202 there. They have the ability to pump it inside the building into a large storage tank during the colder months, but also the ability to pump directly to truck from the tank cars. There’s a small transfer pump and a manifold that controls where it’s unloaded to.
Car–>Pump–>Truck or Car–>Pump–>Tank–> . Another transfer pump accommodates loading from Tank–> Truck.
Ed - this “kid is still on the farm,” maybe I can learn from it.
Allegheny - I do plan to have it on an active siding, probably parallel to the team track.
Granite - I’ll go take a look. See cars up at the other end of the parkiing lot, not thought too much about ones at that end, don’t park at that end often. Are you still enjoying the real ones? Any layout going?
Enjoying the “club layout” in Waterbury. Operating again this Friday. You should come up! No layout of my own yet. Still working on a design. Looks like it will be point-to-multi-point. Hopefully HO, but size constraints make it look like N more and more. Either that, or the plan gets cut from a lot of the necessary items for it to be “interesting”
Ken i like your post on oil facility…could you tell me how the horizontal tanks are filled…is the pipe on top of tank or tank end top or bottom…thanks…its the last part of my filling puzzle.Appreciated .Steve
Piping from tank car pump to tank entered tank on end at bottom of end. Tanks had a slight tilt of 2’’ end to end allowing all product to be accessed by piping. Same pipe connected to drop tubes to fill trucks with some large globe valves. All piping was either 3-4’'. So you couldn’t empty a tank car and fill a truck from the same tank. My first job at age 7 was to climb up on the tank car and using a thief take a sample from the car so it could be tested for color and specific gravity and flash point. That was in 1955-56 !! It was fun being allowed to crawl all over tank cars and not get yelled at at 7 years of age. Company was sold back in 2020 after 89 years in business !!!
