Archer Daniels Midland | ADM makes food additives. Their facility in Colton California seems to distribute corn syrup or similar liquids. All of the freight cars at their facility are tankers. There is some kind of equipment directly over the rails above the cars as you can see in the street view on Google Maps. What is this? What else can you tell me about this facility and it’s operation. It looks like it unloads the tankers and stores the liquid in the storage tanks and then transfers it to trucks for local distribution. The main structure looks like it is just a garage to fuel and service the trucks before loading them. The office seems to be in a set of mobile homes or trailers. How are the tankers unloaded? Where are the pumps and hoses? Thanks.
https://www.google.com/maps/uv?hl=en&pb=!1s0x80dcad3cb9d0f635:0x879daf8badf18f6a!2m22!2m2!1i80!2i80!3m1!2i20!16m16!1b1!2m2!1m1!1e1!2m2!1m1!1e3!2m2!1m1!1e5!2m2!1m1!1e4!2m2!1m1!1e6!3m1!7e115!4s/maps/place/adm/@34.0700186,-117.3266152,3a,75y,278.8h,90t/data%3D*213m4*211e1*213m2*211s1Qf0yP9SCAmzJgZ42XPKdQ*212e0*214m2*213m1*211s0x80dcad3cb9d0f635:0x879daf8badf18f6a!5sadm+-+Google+Search&imagekey=!1e2!2s1Qf0yP9SCAmzJgZ42XPKdQ&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwj2_KeWwuHVAhUGKCYKHRe1A5wQpx8IgAEwCg
It is probably a corn syrup transfer facility, they heat up the syrup so it flows easily. They may be using a portable pump of some type. The main structure is probably to load tanker trucks.
It somewhat resembles a structure I have seen at a facility that gets covered hoppers. At that facility the workmen who are walking on top of the cars have a safety harness that fastens to that extended structure.
Model Railroad Planning 2010 had a very good article on modeling the high fructose corn syrup transloading industry. I had not realized that there are so many grades of HFCS and that cars are dedicated to the various blends and percentages and are not to be "contaminated" by other blends/percents.
Dave Nelson
The cars are stenciled "corn syrup" and the structure is fall protection. Workers loading the cars wear safety harnesses and attach them to the overhead structure so if they fall of the car, they won't hit the ground.
Dave H. Painted side goes up. My website : wnbranch.com
Thank you all for your replies. That helps a lot.