I have two storage tanks behind a cannery. Here is a pic:
http://i1135.photobucket.com/albums/m625/athenasowl1/Maricopa%20Cannery_Switchmans%20Shack_zpscyhlk5lq.jpg
And I am trying to figure out how to run piped from the storage tanks to the delivery tanker car whichis located left of the tanks. Any suggestions?
Bear "It's all about having fun."
There are probably unlimited ways to represent something like this. You may want to zoom some images in something like Google maps to look for ideas, and/or do some searches for industrial piping images.
I constructed this tank car unloader using leftover parts from some kits, including Walthers refinery piping and their oil loading rack. I also included scrap styrene and bits of solder for the hoses.
Rob Spangler
Hi bearman:
Maybe something like this could be modified to fit:
https://www.walthers.com/exec/productinfo/933-3114
This is too big but it would provide the necessary pieces for filling the tankers. In fact, you might be able to get enough pipe out of it to do the whole thing:
https://www.walthers.com/exec/productinfo/933-3104
Both kits are fairly reasonably priced IMO, but I'm not sure how much you want to spend on the project. If you want to do it cheap leftover sprues can be cleaned up. They usually have the right style of corners to represent pipe bends.
Dave
I'm just a dude with a bad back having a lot of fun with model trains, and finally building a layout!
Rob is right, there are unlimited ways to do this. His tank unloading area is simple and to the point, as it would have been designed in the real world.
Here's what I did for a tank unloading area that supples a frozen food/bakery industry:
The brown and red lines are for product, and the white line is an insulated steam pipe, to aid in the unloading of the thicker products. You can be your own mechanical engineer! Mike.
The brown and red lines are for product, and the white line is an insulated steam pipe, to aid in the unloading of the thicker products.
You can be your own mechanical engineer!
Mike.
My You Tube
I built the Walthers tank car platform for my tannery, which uses acid and fuel oil for heating. I deliberately left off some of the piping, because there's more hardware in the kit than the tannery would need.
There are plenty of parts in the kit. I used coffee stirrers and sprue pieces to add more piping to the whole scene. It's probably somewhat non-prototypical and overkill even with some of the piping left out, but it makes a nice scene on the layout.
It takes an iron man to play with a toy iron horse.
Thinking that bending straws miigh pass for pipes if they are not too large.
Joe Staten Island West
Hey, guys, I have the pipes, just trying to figure out how to configure them so it would look like the tanks cars unload into the tanks. come to think of it, would the tank cars unload from the top or the bottom? And would the tanks load through the top?
Mike, I'm a civil engineer. That was difficult enough.
Hold it, hold it, hold it...The imression I get is that the tank cars are unloaded from the bottom into a short length of hose and then into the pipe(s). The pipe(s) are held by some sort of pipe rack/platform and then a pipe from the rack feeds the appropriate tank. Does this sound reasonable? Presumably, the hose connector is cleaned out after unloading a car to prevent contamination of the offloaded material.
One area I worked in received rail cars of Polyol (liquid).
The cars unloaded from the bottom. There was a fitting at the top for a nitrogen line ( compressed air). and two fittings, in and out, for hot water lines as in cold weather the stuff became very thick.
The ployol always went to the same tank, which was inside, so the piping was minimal.
OK, now that we know you already have the pipes, I think the next thing to do is figure out where the tanker loads are going. In your case the contents of the tanks are used in the canning process so all you really need are off-loading facilities. Nothing is going to leave the cannery in a tank car.
That suggests you need piping to connect to the bottom of the cars, as well as some sort of heating system to handle the corn syrup in cold weather. You don't need to model anything for filling the cars unless thats where the steam would go in. I haven't a clue about how steam heat would be applied to the tanker, whether it's through the top or whatever. Somebody else hopefully will chip in on that topic.
For the short distances involved I would suggest that all the piping would be above ground from the tanker to the storage tanks. Logic suggests that the holding tanks would be loaded from the top and drained from the bottom. You can assume the drain pipes from the storage tanks are underground, or model them above ground if you want more detail.
You will need a pump house to get the liquids into the storage tanks. I'm not sure if the same pump would be used for both corn oil and syrup.
I hope my suggestions are more in line with your original question.
Different chemicals are handled in different ways. Here's some information on handling of acid.
I recently designed a real, full size - not model, acid train to truck transfer facility. The sulfuric acid is unloaded from the tank cars using compressed air. Both the compressed air inlet and the acid outlet are in the top dome of the tank car. The actual connections use rather complex swivel arms. The air/acid discharge goes to a transfer tank for degassing to separate the air from the acid. From the transfer tank the acid is pumped to the top of the storage tanks and enters through an in-tank downcomer pipe to below normal acid level to prevent slashing. The trucks are filled from pumps drawing from the lower side of the tanks. The trucks are filled from the top and drained/unloaded from the bottom. The facility is designed to unload 15 tank cars per day (7 or 8 spotted at a time) from a new industrial siding. A rail car winch is used to spot the tank cars one at a time at the unloading platform.
All piping is above ground since you don't want buried piping that could have an unseen leak. Since acid doesn't freeze, the pumps are all outdoors even in northern Nevada. Larger pipes (8" and above) should have pipe rack supports at 15' to 20' spacing. Smaller pipes need closer support spacing.
A neat detail to model in earthquake prone areas would be the flexible connections to the tank. The earlier suggestion of a bendable straw would work great. The bendable part looks very similar to a multi-bulb flexible joint - just use a short length of it though.
If you are interested, you can see the facility at 40*41'18" N and 116*35'25" W on Google Earth.
Ray
Ok, now I understand where I fouled up. I was not specific enough in my original post about what I am trying to do. Yes, Dave, and thank you for politely pointing it out.
http://i1135.photobucket.com/albums/m625/athenasowl1/tank%20unloading2_zps4kqzszzs.jpg
http://i1135.photobucket.com/albums/m625/athenasowl1/Tank%20unloading1_zpss0hclyxu.jpg
Here are two new views of the area I am looking at. I have moved the tanks almost up against the bldg to create some room, and so I think the thing to do would be to construct a structure, pump house if you will, in the rectangle with a couple of pipelines into the pump house and a couple of pipelines coming out of the pump house routed to the top of each storage tank. The pump house being something along the order of what Rob has pictured although smaller.
Originally I was going to run a pipeline out of the bottom of each tank and into the bldg, but by moving the tanks closer to the building it eliminates this aspect of the scene.
This is strictly unloading....loaded cars are picked up at an interchange eleswhere on the layout.
Does this sound about right?
It sounds like you got it right Bear. Just has you said, pipes running from the tank car area, with maybe some type of flexible hose on the end to connect to the car, those pipes going into the pump house, and then from the pump house to the top of the tanks. You might want to add a ladder, maybe a hatch cover, and some railing to the top of the tanks, for employee access, and maybe fencing the area off.
Have fun!
Hi bear:
I think you are on the right track for sure. The only addition I think you might add is steam heating for use on the syrup system. Even in warm weather that stuff doesn't flow very fast and I can't imagine the cannery wanting to spend a whole day waiting for the tanker to drain. Also, the thicker syrup would require much heavier duty pumps and higher pressure lines to move it vs having it thinned by steam heat. It is a logical addition since you already have the boiler house in place. Great scene by the way.
This is just speculation on my part so please don't quote me!
I assume a steam line means an another pipeline probably coming out of the structure, i.e., steam is produced in the boiler house and run into the cannery and then to the extent that it has to be transported to the tanker unloading area another pipe is necessary. I can do that.
bear:
The steam line could come through the factory, or it could come underground directly from the boiler house. The thing you need to figure out is how the steam was applied to the tank car and/or piping to soften the corn syrup. Logically, heat must have been applied to the tank car directly to liquify the cold syrup. If they were just heating the pipes the flow would not increase because the contents of the car would still be thick.
Somebody must be able to show you how tank cars were heated. I don't think it was a rare event.
Ok, Dave, I have taken another look at that scene and the steam pipe will have to be routed out of the large bldg wither directly to the lower lft of the left tank or from under the loading dock. I tried googling tanker car steam heating but came up with nada. Based on the two photos in this thread (see especially mbinsewi's comment) I am thinking that the steam pipe would have another connector that would attach to the tanker car. Boy, this is getting complicated.
Update: I think I have got it, it appears that there are some heating coils on the bottom of the tank car, presumably there is a connector where the steam would flow from the pipe and into the coils.
This publication has a wealth of information about tank cars that you might find interesting. http://www.bnsfhazmat.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/4185_Field_Guide_To_Tank_Cars1-opt.pdf
Joe
Great post. Thanks!
Dean
30 years 1:1 Canadian Pacific.....now switching in HO
Cars requiring heating have an internal heating coil. The hot water, or steam, goes in, circulates, and comes out. Much like an old fahioned hot water heater in a house, school, or office building.
If pressure is desired to push, in addition to the pump, either compressed air, or compressed nitrogen goes into the top of the car. This pressure pushes the fluid to the pump, which then mechanically moves it.
Compressed air may have water vapour in it, compressed nitrogen does not.
The unloading connection is made with a length of heavy duty hose, used for one commodity only, and stored between uses with end caps in place to keep it clean.
In the same way liquid tankers will only ever be used for one commodity, until they reach their madatory servicing, and which time they need to be cleaned internally so they can be inspected.