Folks,
Yesterday around 8 PM a pair of NS locos passed through the area with a 93 car unit (empty) sulphur train. Can anyone shed any light on where it’s heading (possibly) and when it might return loaded? What would that much sulphur be used for?
TIA
Sulphur has several uses in the chemical, paper, and medical field – do you have any of those type manufacturers in your area ?
Came from the Paper plants in the area. Why do you think they Smell so much.
I’d suggest that Hopewell, Virginia, is the destination for the sulfur moves…that name rings a bell for me as handling these cars from both NS and CSX. As to origin, it’s probably Koch Sulfur Products. Would that be Roseport, Minnesota? It could also come from a number of Canadian destinations. A clue might be able to be derived from reporting marks and numbers of some of the cars.
I will do a little digging to see if I can find any reporting marks. I know NS 8388 and 9055 were leading.
That would be liquid sulphur in tankcars? Do you ever see powdered sulphur in gons traveling through Wisconsin?
I don’t think that I’ve ever seen sulphur shipped in solid form, and that covers a lot of time. Shipping it molten in insulated tank cars is probably easier for all parties involved.
I saw some sort of move of solid sulfur (considerably less than a trainload) many years ago. It was in CN gons, but I don’t remember anything about where it was going. It was a one-time deal. All we see these days is the tank cars.
Most common source for sulphur is from “sour” natural gas production. The biggest users are the phosphate refineries in West Florida. Smaller quantities go to Oil Refineries, Paper mills, various Chemical producers, etc. Canada exports solid sulphur to Asia because it would be too hard to keep it hot for as long as it would take to arrive by ship. Also standard bulk carriers can be used.
It may start out as molten when loaded, most times when it gets to destination it is anything but liquid. Cars are placed on a source of steam to re-liquify the contents for unloading.
Oil refineries produce a lot of liquid sulfur from petroleum. There are sulfur trains that run from the oil refineries near Crockett and Martinez, California.
Carl,
You’ve got an email on the way. It has the info you were looking for. Reporting marks were:
-GATX,
-PPTX,
-WAGX,
-TCIX.
Thanks!
That sounds like a train in service for the PCS Phosphate Company (PCS originally standing for the Potash Corporation of Saskatchewan). I hope somebody else can use this info to provide a likely origin.
My guess is that the train goes to a PCS phosphate products plant loaded.
http://www.potashcorp.com/about/facilities/phosphate/aurora/
I once saw an open hopper placarded for solid sulfur. The gates were open. Hopefully it started its trip empty.
I do not go to the Bay Area often. However, I have never seen a sulfur tank car there in person or in the satellite photographs. I would suspect that most sulfur produced at California refineries is trucked to a port and exported.
The biggest use for sulfur would be in the production of sulfuric acid, which is one of the most common and important products there is. It is used in the production of all kinds of products.
Another name for sulphur is brimstone. Perhaps the Devil was a little short…
[}:)]