I agree with the comments noting the difficulty of close to prototype realism since most plants are large and complex. Most chemical plants (or refineries) consist of multiple process units, each typically with heater(s), columns, heat exchangers, piping. And they take up a lot of land. Even a small refinery I worked in had originaally at least 5 process units plus utilities (steam boilers) and tankage and took a fair amount of space. A really small/simple topping refinery or chem plant could have less.
But, I was willing to compromise (vs exclude) and squeezed some refinery items in the corner of my small HO layout. Re: kitbashing, I combined a Walthers kit with a Vollmer kit, blending the pieces better by using a common paint color. Real units would have some columns (generally hot and cold ones) insulated, and the more ambient temp columns painted. And the paint might be different colors in different process units. I have some piping kits (Walthers and Faller) in the closet to add some detail at some point. I also have added a background scene to add the idea of the equipment being the beginning of a larger industrial area.
I'd say if you have some space and want to tackle it, kitbashing with some scratchbuilding has many possibilities and can be fun.
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Paul
Modeling HO with a transition era UP bent
Worked in the chemical industry for 33 years. Some chemical plants are very large and would require a very large layout. Others are very moderate in size. I have visited many small chemical facilities that made fine chemicals that where in three story brick buildings. Most were served by one railroad tracks and had 2 or 3 outdoor storage tanks. Tanks were usually in concrete diked areas for spill containment. A chemical plant such as a two reactor methyl silicylate (oil of wintergreen) facillity would be easy to model. It would need a batch reaction tank and a batch wash tank. Product would be packaged in 55 gallon drums. Plant I worked in made this product in a two story brick building. Methanol was received in tank cars, stored in verticle storage tank. Salicylic acid was received via a pipe line from another department. The product goes into food flavoring and into linament.
I visited Mallinkrodt Chemical Company in St. Louis during an interview trip. It was a collection of very old brick buildings. It had one rail siding. Almost everything was inside old buildings. This company made laboratory chemicals and pharmacueticals. I believe you could find pictures of it on google earth street view. It is still there as of three years ago.
Another good starting place would be to use part or all of Walther's ethanol plant kit. It is a modern chemical industry. The model closely resembles actual dry mill process ethanol fermentation plants. Wet mill plant tend to be larger as they also produce corn oil and corn syrup. The ethanol plant would be a good place to start for a kit bash chemical plant.
10 year old thread.
But for anyone interested the Petro-Chemical Plant kit made by Plastruc is a good starting point. http://www.plastruct.com/Pages/Hobby.html Go to their search page and enter "1008" in the Catalog Code box.
The componets from which the kit is made up are also available separaetly.
Walthers has many Plastruc items in stock:
https://www.walthers.com/exec/search?manu=PLASTRUC&item=&words=restrict&split=30&category=&scale=&instock=Q&start=0
I tried to sell my two cents worth, but no one would give me a plug nickel for it.
I don't have a leg to stand on.
The term "Chemical plant" is a pretty broad one. It could include small or very large installations, and could involve many varied processing methods for a variety of chemicals. I have seen at least one small "chemical plant" in Everett, Pennsylvania, that looked like an assemblage of wooden barns with unusual rooflines; and of course a large chemical plant could stretch for many city blocks. Ideally, I would suggest finding an actual prototype plant and trying to replicate that, possibly in compressed form.
The AC&Y Historical Society's online magazine Vol. XVIII No. 1, Spring-Summer 2013 had an article on a plant at Copley, Ohio where the Minnesota Mining & Manufacturing Co (3-M, the Scotch tape people) had a plant that processed raw sulfur into sulfuric acid. The plant also produced the mineral granules that covered roofing shingles. The article has several photos that could help in the building of a model. Included are photos of the classic wooden 3-M boxcars, as well as 8,000 gallon acid tank cars similar to the ones recently produced by Tangent.
Tom
Probably no longer matters. I work at a mid sized plant making pharma. this could be served with a two line spur (and once was, off a UP line right outside our gate) You would have tanikers of solvents in, two a week of different solvents (acetone, methanol, isopropyl acetate, isopropyl alchohol, isoprpyl ether, etc,) and three going out of mixed solvent waste (generally separated in to hi or low chloronated, or high or low dicloromethanol), box cars of starting solids in, refferes and box cars of product out, and occasional flat cars of heavy equipment (reactors or driers) in. buildings would be boxes with mazes of pipes. if anyones actually going to model this, contact me and ill get some pics for you. thing i most often see lacking is secondary containment - basically, when you have holding vessels outside, there should be a three or four foot wall around the base of them, and things like safety shower/eyewash stations, grouding cable reels, pumps and hoses, NFPA placards, or different drums. "chemical plants" as opposed to things like oil refinaries, use many different chemicals, and those come in different material containers - acids will come in polymer drums and totes (big square things with cages around them) because acids eat metal, and caustics will come in metal drums, powders come in fiber drums, all plastic wrapped on pallets. raw materials also come in metal and poly totes. even assuming all your equipment is inside, there will be mazes of pipes on the outside - cooling and heating (we have 0 degree cooling brine, -40 cooling brine, liquid nitrogen, and water) heating (steam lines), gases (nitrogen for inerting reactors, oxygen, air for breathing systems and big air handlers both going in and coming out), and things like condensors and scrubbers, with associated fans. there will be utilities like TCUs (temp control units, local heat exchangers), knock out pots from condensors, filter housings, pumps, breathing and nitrogen hook ups, and the ubiquitous shower/eye wash.
Arrowmattic Chemical Complex, Art Curren, May 1995 issue of MR. Very cool looking complex from kitbashing/kitmingling.
Chuck
Modeling the Motor City
Put some inbound/outbound tracks and loading facilities on the layout with most of the plant on a photo backdrop. You can model all the complex detail in whatever size plant you desire with the snap of the camera shutter. Preprinted backdrops may be available.