ndbprr wrote:I would model a refinery the same way I would model a steel mill or auto plant or any other major industry. Every one has a marshalling yard that the railroad uses to transfer cars into the plant. sometime the railroad does it and sometimes the industrial switcher brings cars out and takes more back. I would put a picture of the industry on the backdrop and some trees in front of it to look like it is some distance away. that way you can have several tracks in a yard that doesn't take up much room and stillmodel a major industry.
Paul Dolkos did an article on various tips and tricks for modelling big industries in limited space in Model Railroad Planning 2003 ("Industrial Sprawl in limited spaces", page 36-43, MRP 2003).
Here is a sketch using some of his ideas:
Smile, Stein
Hi,
All the refineries I worked had flares, and thank goodness for that.
By the way, my pick for the "dirtiest job" goes to those folks who work the coker units in refineries. The coker unit(s) are huge vertical tanks with what looks like a derrick on top. The heaviest oil (sludge ?) from the refining process ends up being sprayed into these tanks and it sets up along the sides. When complete, a drill like, high pressure water wand is lowered into the tanks, rotating and cutting into the coke as it goes around. The end result is the oily, wet, coke, which is used for fuel and some other purposes. It is easily the nastiest, dirtiest thing in a refinery.
As long as I am on the subject, one co-worker in the early '70s decided to take a 5 gal can of this home to use in his BBQ. Well, it sure lit easily and readily burned. The only problem was that it was so hot that it burned out the bottom of his BBQ!
Enjoy,
Mobilman44
ENJOY !
Living in southeast Texas, formerly modeling the "postwar" Santa Fe and Illinois Central
mobilman44 wrote: Hi,All the refineries I worked had flares, and thank goodness for that. By the way, my pick for the "dirtiest job" goes to those folks who work the coker units in refineries. The coker unit(s) are huge vertical tanks with what looks like a derrick on top. The heaviest oil (sludge ?) from the refining process ends up being sprayed into these tanks and it sets up along the sides. When complete, a drill like, high pressure water wand is lowered into the tanks, rotating and cutting into the coke as it goes around. The end result is the oily, wet, coke, which is used for fuel and some other purposes. It is easily the nastiest, dirtiest thing in a refinery. As long as I am on the subject, one co-worker in the early '70s decided to take a 5 gal can of this home to use in his BBQ. Well, it sure lit easily and readily burned. The only problem was that it was so hot that it burned out the bottom of his BBQ!Enjoy,Mobilman44
That Coke product... would it have been shipped out in covered or uncovered hoppers?
Thanks!
Rob
The type coke produced by most refineries was in pieces the size of charcoal briquets (spell?) that were very oily and had lots of dust and of course a lot of smaller pieces. As I said earlier, this stuff is nasty. The Mobil (now Exxon Mobil) Joliet refinery shipped most all of it via barge (DesPlaines River next to the refinery), but some also went via truck - covered of course. I do not recall any going by rail, but I don't see why it could not. If it did, I would expect it to be some kind of covered hopper type car (makes sense, but I really don't know).
One more thing, a few refineries make a different kind of coke and in much smaller quantities. This is relatively higher value, and is used in the making of filiments for light bulbs. I wish I could remember the name of this type of coke, but it escapes me.
Rob2112 wrote: Looking to build a medium sized H.O. Scale Oil Refinery and tank farm... anyone have any pics of theirs? I need some ideas. I seem to remember an article in a MR mag about a year ago?... Anyone know which one?
Looking to build a medium sized H.O. Scale Oil Refinery and tank farm... anyone have any pics of theirs? I need some ideas. I seem to remember an article in a MR mag about a year ago?... Anyone know which one?
Went back to check. Model Railroader November 2005, page 56-61 "Industry you can model: Pipeline on rails" by Jeff Wilson.
I took the description Jeff Wilson gave and played with it a little.
Here is a possible design for 2x8 H0 scale refinery:
Refinery siding should be able to hold a maximum of about ten 40-foot cars dropped off or picked up by a mainline train.
It should be possible to move short cuts of four 40' cars around inside the refinery with a small switcher (I have drawn in a GE 70-tonner) to the four tracks inside the refinery, without fouling the main. Edit: possible to move cuts of four cars to the loading racks. Only possible to move three cars at a time to the additives tracks, through the switchback.
Im overloaded with all the little tips and tidbits about various materials to and from a refinery.
Im ok with fuel oil, desiel, kero, gasoline, propane etc. But im not ok with the Additives house. Im assuming these will be drums or bagged product in boxcars right? Is it INBOUND to the refinery or OUTBOUND?
Throw in the two Athearn Shell 3 dome RTR chemical tank cars with a build date of '48 and Im really stumped.
Falls Valley RR wrote: Im overloaded with all the little tips and tidbits about various materials to and from a refinery.Im ok with fuel oil, desiel, kero, gasoline, propane etc. But im not ok with the Additives house. Im assuming these will be drums or bagged product in boxcars right? Is it INBOUND to the refinery or OUTBOUND?
Additives would be inbound for a refinery. To be added to the fuels made. Could come in boxcars, but more likely in tanker cars with chemicals, I would think. Or at least - that is what Jeff Wilson had in the illustration in his MR article.
You could also make the lowermost of the two right hand sidings additives unloading (with piping going under the tracks) and make the uppermost track loading of boxcars with motor oil and other lubricants (shipped in 55-gallon drums, or shipped in packages containing smaller cans of e.g motor oil), by adding a loading dock to the big building on the right.
Plants like the Chevron additives plant in Belle Chase, LA were recieving chemicals in totes of various kinds (cardboard, metal, plastic f/ liquids). These would be easy truck, box or gon loads. Further up the Mississippi River, over 180 plants line the IC main between Baton rouge and New Orleans. In Geismar, petrochem plants cover both sides of the tracks. Putting a BASF loading rack accross the tracks from a Borden Chem process unit is very realistic and gives a high density feel without needing for the chemicals to cross the tracks.
Photo backdrops are the way I am going to help add depth to the view.
Hi!
I love this posting, as it gives me a chance to talk about the oil bizznessss..............
As someone indicated, the vast majority of "additives" come into the refinery in a liquid state, obviously almost always via tank car.
However, Boxcars do have their place in a refinery, bringing in various bagged/drum chemicals, high value platinum catalyst (replaced every two years or so in the FCC - fluid catalitic cracker unit), clays & special earth, etc., etc. Also, refineries have huge maintenance departments (often about 1/3 of total employees), and various metal/wood building materials, pumps, valves, lubes, and the like were brought in as well.
On the outbound side, boxcars took out "used" chemicals, wax production (if they had a wax plant), and lubes in various size containers (if they had a lube plant), etc.
During construction or "turnaround" (the periodic complete redo of various units), you could find flat cars or even depressed center flat cars bringing in vessels or generators or whatever.
Frankly, it is highly possible to see just about any car you would normally run (ex stock cars) in a refinery at one time or another.
For my HO Colorado Kansas and Nebraska Railroad's oil storage/tank farm industries, I plan to use ABS/PVC fittings. I work at a plumbing supply house in Denver, and have looked at the 1 1/2, 2, 3, and 4-inch couplings, end caps, etc. and such for the storage tanks. I also plan to use a 4x2" reducer, capped on the 4" side, on top of two 2" couplings; puttied, sanded smooth, painted, and lettered as a water storage tank for a small town. (Also 2" pipe cut and glued for a grain elevator or two. )
Pat Curtis, CK&N Railroad
curtisporky@msn.com
That's a very big question. The answer really depends on the size of the refinery, the status of existing piping/valves/pumps/etc, and the like.
Large refineries tend to rebuild their own pumps (and often valves) and most will keep spares readily available (downtime at a refinery is extremely costly). If they don't do the rebuilds themselves, they will ship them out. Pumps/Motors/Valves come in all sizes, and "these days" those large refineries tend to be in areas where service companies have cropped up nearby - thus movements are mostly via truck. But the humongous items tend - not always - to go by rail.
Usually the major traffic is right before a construction/expansion project or right before a major "turnaround". Turnarounds typically happen in the spring, at the time a refinery goes from maximizing winter fuel oil production to summer gasoline production. During this time, major units within the refinery will be shut down, torn apart, rebuilt, and brought back on line. For major refineries, this is a 6-8 week process, typically about every two years.
I would suggest that you could always have a flat or two of machinery and a couple of boxcars of "stuff" going in/out of a refinery at any given time - and no one should find fault with that.
ENJOY,
mobilman44 wrote: Hi,The type coke produced by most refineries was in pieces the size of charcoal briquets (spell?) that were very oily and had lots of dust and of course a lot of smaller pieces. As I said earlier, this stuff is nasty. The Mobil (now Exxon Mobil) Joliet refinery shipped most all of it via barge (DesPlaines River next to the refinery), but some also went via truck - covered of course. I do not recall any going by rail, but I don't see why it could not. If it did, I would expect it to be some kind of covered hopper type car (makes sense, but I really don't know).One more thing, a few refineries make a different kind of coke and in much smaller quantities. This is relatively higher value, and is used in the making of filiments for light bulbs. I wish I could remember the name of this type of coke, but it escapes me.Mobilman44
If I were to use 2-bay covered hoppers (Like the ones used for Cement) what kind of facility could I use to load the Hoppers? I've played with the idea of kitbashing a Walthers Medusa Cement facility by only using 4 storage bins instead of the 8. I also have a Walthers Coaling tower (The cement colored one) I could modify, this way I could include a truck loading shed as well. Just looking for some ideas on the loading procedure for the Coke stuff by rail. Any ideas?
I did get a back issue of the NMRA Scale Rails (Aug 07) with the nice refinery (Augusta mimic). He (Stephen Priest) did an outstanding job! VERY inspirational! May take me awhile, but my Augusta "Mobil" (Not Texaco) Refinery will be atleast that good and as detailed (Hopefully!).
I also used PVC fittings but in N. Worked great. Fittings cut in half and used in conjuction with a painted background greatly improved the illusion of debth/size. Sorry, no pics as layout has gone to layout heaven.
Tom O'Neill
As a commercial real estate broker, I specialize in selling existing rail / marine petroleum terminals and development sites. Oil refineries are massive in size and will need a large amount of space even in HO scale.
I am in progress of constructing an HO scale 2' x 12' shelf layout that will provide operation for two different yard staging and switching applications. An Ethanol / Gasoline blending and tank storage facility with an adjacent semi truck loading rack will be on one side of the layout.
My petroleum terminal layout plan will include oil storage tanks, tank car unloading racks / pumps / piping, Etc. I spent six months planning the track design and also visiting proto type terminals here in NJ. I also spent a lot of time on Google Earth looking at terminals and tracks from the air.
The track plan I finally chose consist of ( 2) six track rail ladders (opposite each other), with a single track main line running through the middle of the yard at a 45 degree angle. There are several engine and car sidings on both sides of the yard, and three bypass tracks. I used Code 100 Atlas Flex and all 17 turnouts are Peco Code 100 Switches. NCE Power-Cab DCC system.
The opposite track ladder at the left end of the layout is planned for an Intermodal Container staging and loading yard , with an overhead traveling container loader. There will also be a warehouse and shipping facility with several tail gate truck loading doors.
I can send photos of the work in progress if asked.
I have been meaning to get out and get permission to extensively photograph this abandoned refinery near Farmington NM. It looks like the perfect size to model. I think it was built in the 50s?
http://binged.it/1bRKor8
This one also near here (Bloomfield NM) was more recently mothballed about 5 or so years ago. Its larger and more complicated but would definitely be cool to model or approximate. I have visited this one a few times as I am acquainted with the (former) chief chemist. The lab is the longer central building in the center of the refinery.
http://binged.it/1bRKH5f
The thing that interests me about a model of a refinery vs a photo of a refinery is the complexity and the maze of pipes and equipment actually built in 3D. However, that does take a lot of time and knowledge to get it right. Mobilman ? It would be great if you could put together a book like Dean Freytag on modeling a refinery, with lots of pictures and diagrams. (in your spare time LOL)
dstephensonMy petroleum terminal layout plan will include oil storage tanks, tank car unloading racks / pumps / piping, Etc. I spent six months planning the track design and also visiting proto type terminals here in NJ. I also spent a lot of time on Google Earth looking at terminals and tracks from the air.
Not necessarily so. Here is the Bakken Oil Express terminal in Dickinson, ND. It kinda looks like an HO scale layout from the air. Both loops are now complete, each loop has four tracks, oil arrives by truck. For the moment the left loop is used for incoming fracking sand, and different trucks take that stuff north to where it is needed. Those tracks will become a diesel fuel exporting station once the diesel refinery is built just to the west of this layout.
Ethanol plants are much smaller, here is the plant in Richardton:
The facility is on the BNSF main line in Richardton, there are four plant tracks, the plant leases two locomotives for its use. The plant uses coal for its heat, and the plan was to truck the coal from a mine about 60 miles northeast of us, but the engineers did not get his sums just so, and that lower quality coal did not provide the anticipated BTUs, and so now the coal arrives by rail also.
Corn arrives by truck and rail, coal arrives by rail, gasoline arrives by rail (to denature the alcohol, otherwise they would need a liqueur license to export the stuff, and it would have to be sold by the quart--What the heck: corn squeezin's is corn squeezin's.) Ethanol goes out by rail, and Brewer's yeast goes out both by truck and by rail. Dry brewer's yeast goes out by rail, wet brewer's yeast needs special trucks to unload the product.
ROAR
The Route of the Broadway Lion The Largest Subway Layout in North Dakota.
Here there be cats. LIONS with CAMERAS
I have a large tank farm on my ho layout. I kit bashed some of the tanks. Some of the tanks I scratch built. All of the scale piping and supports are parts from PLASTRUCT. Check out PLASTRUCT on line catalog before doing anything. I wish I knew how to post snaps of my tank farm.
Hey, I was just thinking of an oil refinery type industry for my new layout. Having seen a few of them and the tangle of pipes and tanks, with some creativity with plastic container tops and other things, one should be able to build a good set up. There is some protein drink my wife uses and the scoops could be used as tanks in a model. The plastic top off a shaving cream can and the list goes on as to what you can use.
Ted
I am working on my oil refienry/chemical plant. I is a combiantion of the Walthers North Island and Vollmer refienries. I will have two large tanks for crude oil and four small tanks for intermediate/finished products. The scratch built load rack is 13" long and will accomodate 5 fifty foot tank cars. It is not very big, but will give the impression of a larger refinery with all of the piping I will putting in..
Just a suggestion, if you model a tank farm perhaps consider placing a small aircraft (single or twin prop) in the field/buffer zone around it, why you may ask, well recently a small plane went down in a tank farms field it happened about a week ago, it was a belly landing and damaged the craft a little, anyway now a week later the plane is still there, perhaps it's something to consider to add some little bits of uniqueness to the scene.
Steve
If everything seems under control, you're not going fast enough!
I figured I would add my two cents since i have been working on my Refinery for the last 5 months. The main refinery area is approximately 42 inches wide x 24 deep but also extends down the length of the penisula approximately 1x wide and 8 foot long to the Tank loading racks. Products in are catalyst, piping, empty coke hoppers, empty tank cars, and box cars to the warehouse. Products out are filled tanks (jet fuel, gasoline, diesel, asphalt), petroleum coke via hopper and spent catalyst (coverd hopper) for the FCC unit. I am modeling the 1980's.
Here is an overall shot.
There have been a few more bulidings added since this photo was taken. The primary crude unit has been installed (the heart of the refinery) as well as the crude distallation column. I am still working on the cooling tower and the last little bits of piping between the units. The FCC unit is a actually a photo on the backdrop. I tried very hard to make it difficult to know where the 3D Models begin and the backdrop ends. The piperack going over the track is actually covers up a hole in the backdrop that leads to a staging yard.
I can't post all the photos here but here is a link to bunch of the different components of the refinery in the different stages of construction.
https://www.flickr.com/gp/159269054@N04/Ae86i5
This is the tank farm proir to all the piping being put in.
Here is the tank farm with all piping in and all valve details added. My refinery is supposed to represent the Conoco Refinery in Denver. The railroad track run right through the middle of the refinery dividing it into the east and west plants. Since i work in the refining industry I felt I had to the refinery right. The one big "its my railroad thing" i have in the refinery is that the Conoco Refinery in Denver doesn't have a coker unit, but I had already built the coker tower before I realized this so now the refinery has a coker unit.
This is probably the best photo of it as it stands right now. It took 6 months to build this (from scratch) and is fully lit with almost 50 LED's.
Here is the backside view of the Coker Tower prior to adding things like the drill stems and the lights. The stairs were a project in themselves. there are 120 steps from the bottom to middeck.
Here is a track level shot.
on of the most time consuming parts is piping. I try to make sure that every pipe has a proper connection, which in some cases is a bit tedioius but does make the refinery more realistic. Here is some of the piping along the backdrop before I painted it all. The two heaters are the coker heaters. There are 4 drums in the coker tower so I needed two coker heaters. I stole these two from the Walthers north Island Refinery kit. I did try to break up the kit as much as possible so it wasn't readily identifable.
The most tediuous part by far (worse than piping) is the number of hand rails and safety cages. The cooling tower alone has almost 10 FEET of wiring in railing alone.
Here is a sample shot of the railings before painting them safety yellow.
and yet more piping....
Colorado Front Range Railroad: http://www.coloradofrontrangerr.com/
theodorefisk Hey, I was just thinking of an oil refinery type industry for my new layout. Having seen a few of them and the tangle of pipes and tanks, with some creativity with plastic container tops and other things, one should be able to build a good set up. There is some protein drink my wife uses and the scoops could be used as tanks in a model. The plastic top off a shaving cream can and the list goes on as to what you can use. Ted
I used a plastic cake frosting can for my one tank farm The rest of the tanks are in the backdrop.
Joe Staten Island West
How about a crude oil unloading facility instead. The refinery could be a backdrop image. Also makes for a good port scene
A pessimist sees a dark tunnel
An optimist sees the light at the end of the tunnel
A realist sees a frieght train
An engineer sees three idiots standing on the tracks stairing blankly in space
Renegade1c, your refinery looks terrific! I particularly liked the track level view.
Ray