Lone Wolf and Santa Fe mobilman44 Yikes, a thread about a refinery and I am only now responding!!! I've worked at a number of refineries, most notably the Mobil (now ExxonMobil) refinery in Joliet Illinois and Beaumont Texas. The Joliet refinery was the first grass roots one built in many decades, starting up in June, 1973. Unlike most others, it was built with expansion in mind......and thus became a model for what refineries could be. OK, a typical refinery brings in Crude oil via pipeline, barge, and the smaller refineries will also bring it in via tank car or tank truck. We are talking a lot of oil, for a decent sized refinery can process 300,000 barrels a day - a barrel being 42 gallons. The biggest tanks are for crude storage and have fixed roofs. The gasolines (multi grades plus aviation gas) are normally stored in floating roof tanks. Diesel fuel and heating fuel are stored in solid roof tanks. By products of butanes and ethane are a gaseous state and stored in ball tanks. Petroleum coke (nasty stuff) is stored in open pits. The crude oil is run thru various "units" to break it down into the components. The towers that you see catch the heated/evaporated crude components at the different levels. Simply put, the crude oil "fumes" will condense the heavier oils lower in the distilling units, the gasolines higher up, and the ethane/butanes at the top. From there the components are pumped to other units where the gasolines get octane boosted, finer cuts made of the different grades, etc. Even a medium sized refinery is a huge complex. One might put some tankage and units on the edge of their layout and have a backdrop showing the "rest" of the refinery. Otherwise, a good representation of a refinery would take up an awful lot of room. Of course my take on this is likely skewed, having spent a lot of years in and around them. On my current HO layout I too wanted a refinery. But it quickly became obvious that I could not do it justice to one "in my eyes". I did not want my entire layout to be a refinery. So I settled on a petroleum terminal, with tank car unloading in and truck deliveries out. ENJOY !!! Excellent information. Thank you. I will save it for future reference.
mobilman44 Yikes, a thread about a refinery and I am only now responding!!! I've worked at a number of refineries, most notably the Mobil (now ExxonMobil) refinery in Joliet Illinois and Beaumont Texas. The Joliet refinery was the first grass roots one built in many decades, starting up in June, 1973. Unlike most others, it was built with expansion in mind......and thus became a model for what refineries could be. OK, a typical refinery brings in Crude oil via pipeline, barge, and the smaller refineries will also bring it in via tank car or tank truck. We are talking a lot of oil, for a decent sized refinery can process 300,000 barrels a day - a barrel being 42 gallons. The biggest tanks are for crude storage and have fixed roofs. The gasolines (multi grades plus aviation gas) are normally stored in floating roof tanks. Diesel fuel and heating fuel are stored in solid roof tanks. By products of butanes and ethane are a gaseous state and stored in ball tanks. Petroleum coke (nasty stuff) is stored in open pits. The crude oil is run thru various "units" to break it down into the components. The towers that you see catch the heated/evaporated crude components at the different levels. Simply put, the crude oil "fumes" will condense the heavier oils lower in the distilling units, the gasolines higher up, and the ethane/butanes at the top. From there the components are pumped to other units where the gasolines get octane boosted, finer cuts made of the different grades, etc. Even a medium sized refinery is a huge complex. One might put some tankage and units on the edge of their layout and have a backdrop showing the "rest" of the refinery. Otherwise, a good representation of a refinery would take up an awful lot of room. Of course my take on this is likely skewed, having spent a lot of years in and around them. On my current HO layout I too wanted a refinery. But it quickly became obvious that I could not do it justice to one "in my eyes". I did not want my entire layout to be a refinery. So I settled on a petroleum terminal, with tank car unloading in and truck deliveries out. ENJOY !!!
Yikes, a thread about a refinery and I am only now responding!!!
I've worked at a number of refineries, most notably the Mobil (now ExxonMobil) refinery in Joliet Illinois and Beaumont Texas. The Joliet refinery was the first grass roots one built in many decades, starting up in June, 1973. Unlike most others, it was built with expansion in mind......and thus became a model for what refineries could be.
OK, a typical refinery brings in Crude oil via pipeline, barge, and the smaller refineries will also bring it in via tank car or tank truck. We are talking a lot of oil, for a decent sized refinery can process 300,000 barrels a day - a barrel being 42 gallons.
The biggest tanks are for crude storage and have fixed roofs. The gasolines (multi grades plus aviation gas) are normally stored in floating roof tanks. Diesel fuel and heating fuel are stored in solid roof tanks. By products of butanes and ethane are a gaseous state and stored in ball tanks. Petroleum coke (nasty stuff) is stored in open pits.
The crude oil is run thru various "units" to break it down into the components. The towers that you see catch the heated/evaporated crude components at the different levels. Simply put, the crude oil "fumes" will condense the heavier oils lower in the distilling units, the gasolines higher up, and the ethane/butanes at the top. From there the components are pumped to other units where the gasolines get octane boosted, finer cuts made of the different grades, etc.
Even a medium sized refinery is a huge complex. One might put some tankage and units on the edge of their layout and have a backdrop showing the "rest" of the refinery. Otherwise, a good representation of a refinery would take up an awful lot of room. Of course my take on this is likely skewed, having spent a lot of years in and around them.
On my current HO layout I too wanted a refinery. But it quickly became obvious that I could not do it justice to one "in my eyes". I did not want my entire layout to be a refinery. So I settled on a petroleum terminal, with tank car unloading in and truck deliveries out.
ENJOY !!!
Excellent information. Thank you. I will save it for future reference.
Thats More or less what I did but I put it in back so I could use my small collection of Hess Mini trucks in the scene all 6 of them.
Joe Staten Island West