Looking for Oil Refinery/tank farm ideas in HO scale...

[Anonymous]

Here are two of mine...

 This one is a close up featuring the truck rack.

 http://img142.imageshack.us/img142/8647/tankfarmyv4.jpg

 And this one is the overview.

 http://img186.imageshack.us/img186/8520/fuelfarm2hw5.jpg

It may or may not be the final location on that side of the benchwork. I have one open corner that will fit this industry. It is about a foot wide by roughly... 4 feet long.

The big tank is one of the Walthers rerun tall oil tank, the middle tanks is the Walthers Interstate Oil, the truck is a possible Ulrich, the two small domes on the far right is something you wont believe...

Walmart Optical Zoom Domes for those who want very big print while reading a book. And a retaining wall of sorts is cut down and ground out of leftover Walthers Foundation Modulars. It is supposed to be a pair of buried Pressure gas tanks like propane and such. But not finished with detailing, painting etc. (And woodland scenics ballasting, scenery, trees and signs etc etc etc.)

The whole thing is still a work in progress. Apologies in advance for mistakes, omissions etc. It started off as a simple oil/gasoline dealer for the town and grew into a Industry-supporting frankenstien.

I finished the Frankenstien, basically I discarded the retaining wall and added some valves, pipes etc for each of the buried tanks. I put just enough pipes down to make sense.. sorta.

I have feeling this is one industry that might never be finished as more tanks take up residence with associated piping. If it gets too big, I might have to set it on the harbor for ships. lol.

[Rob2112]

Rob,

  I just retired from the oil bizzness (petroleum & edible) after 40 years, and worked/visited about 10 refineries and several terminals, etc.  Obviously I have a soft spot for tank cars and such and have quite a collection.

A few years ago I decided to give those tank cars some place to go.  But, to model an HO refinery of any size that in my opinion would look remotely realistic would take up a good size area, at least 20 sq feet or more.  Also, refinerys are extremely complicated, with piping going everywhere, and various towers and buildings all over the place.  And, tankage is needed for crude oil, intermediate stage processed oils, finished products (3 grades gasoline, 2 fuel oil, slop oil, etc.), and of course dome shaped tanks for the butanes used as feedstock and propane which is a result of the refining process.  In short, the above was way too big a project for me.

So, I built an oil terminal.  Using various cornerstone kits and scratch materials I came up with a double tankcar rack, 8 storage tanks, and a truck loading rack - all with piping going to/from.  One cool thing is that you can run piping "into the ground" to go under tracks or roads and come up on the other side.  Anyway, Cornerstone has two different piping kits, Interstate fuel oil kit, various storage tanks, and the loading platforms.  Somewhere else on this forum a fellow built a beautiful strip of about 6 or 8 of these hooked together. 

My oil terminal is in 4 modules, and is currently sitting in a plastic storage box as I am moving some sidings/wiring in the area - which is why I have no picture.

Hope the above helps - and does not hurt your enthusiasm!!!

Mobilman44 

 Ever get around to posting any pics of your oil terminal?  Id love to see them!  Trying to model a portion of the old (and non existant) Augusta KS oil refinery.  Know anything about that refinery?  I know it was Socony-Mobil.

[Rob2112]

Thanks guys!  Appreciate all the helpful info!

[mobilman44]

May I add to Tgsargent's posting..........

   "Gas" pumped from the ground contains petroleum liquids (and salts, water, etc).  The gas plant dries the gas (removes liquids), and sends the gas portion down a pipeline (usually) where it ultimately ends up as home or industrial fuel.  The gas is primarily methane (C1), but when the market is right, ethane (C2) will be kept in the gas stream.

The liquids (usually called Gas Liquids as it is easily pressurized to a liquid) portion (ex water, salt, etc) is either trucked or sent by rail or pipeline to a fractionator.  Many major refineries have fractionators for this purpose.  At the fractionator, the liquids stream will be split into its components (ethane C2, propane C3, Normal Butane NC4, Isobutane IC4, and natural gasoline C5+).  Ethane is used for chemical feedstock, propane for chemical feedstock and heating (both residential and crop drying), normal butane is used to pressurize gasoline, isobutane is used to up the octane of gasoline, and natural gasoline is pumped straight into the gasoline "pool".  Note that each of the components have primary and secondary usages, which are typically market driven.

In the refineries, gas liquids and usually stored is spherical tanks or cigar shaped tanks as they are pressurized.  But the bulk of the liquids is stored underground in salt formations, such as found at Mt. Belvieu Texas (heart of the Gas Liquids market), Hutchinson Kansas, Adamana Arizona, and other locations.

Ha, hope I didn't bore you all...........

Mobilman44  

  

[nucat78]

Here in the Panhandle of Texas, we used to (and still do) have a bunch of these type plants where natural gas is piped to a plant where the liquids (condensate) are stripped through a distillation unit (nowdays they use cryogenics).  The residue gas was returned back underground where the process started all over again.  These liquids were then transferred to a storage tank for later transfer to a refinery for final processing.  Before the days of pipelines, these liquids were sent out by tank car from loading racks that were located near by.

Interesting.  I'm told by a former Inland Steel employee that the coke plants at steel mills produce and sell a goodly number of noxious liquids like toluene, xylene, etc.  Shipped out by rail and/or truck.

 

[tgsargent]

Rob,

     Actually, the Walthers Refinery Kits are not much smaller than a typical Natural Gas Processing Plant.  Here in the Panhandle of Texas, we used to (and still do) have a bunch of these type plants where natural gas is piped to a plant where the liquids (condensate) are stripped through a distillation unit (nowdays they use cryogenics).  The residue gas was returned back underground where the process started all over again.  These liquids were then transferred to a storage tank for later transfer to a refinery for final processing.  Before the days of pipelines, these liquids were sent out by tank car from loading racks that were located near by.  A few of the extras you would need to model would be a cooling tower, boiler, an amine treater, an office, and maybe a small warehouse.  This isn't a complete list, but will get you in the ballpark.

     Most of the pictures you see of these natural gas plants are huge monstrosities that are usually part of a refinery.  But there are a lot of the smaller plants that are still operating in the area that I live in.  As a matter of fact, there is one on the north side of the plant where I work.

      Hope this helps.

      Terry

 

 

[nucat78]

Another possible way to "model" a refinery is to swipe a John Armstrong trick.  Put the loading rack, pump house and a minor maze of piping on the fascia side of the main track(s.)  So, where's the refinery?

You're standing in it - in the aisleway.

Yup, the small by industry standards Clark refinery in Blue Island, Illinois was a huge thing for a model railroad even with selective compression.  I'd really think about using some kind of trickery like this.

[ndbprr]

I think you model a refinery the same way a steel mill or an auto plant should be modeled.  Every one has a yard outside to marshall ths cars.  Put a picture on the backdrop to make it look like the yard is 1/2 mile away (which in the case of a refniery would be very justifiable due to the flammability issues) and a row of trees between the two and you have all the car shipments without the space taken up for the actual refinery.

[mobilman44]

Hi again,

Those "torches" are called flares, and are used primarily as an emergency relief valve in case of excess pressure build-up in any of the refinery's units.  But, they are also used to flare off unwanted gases too - although this is not done anywhere near as much today as it was years ago due to cost of gases, pollution controls, and public perception.

The flares are typically always burning, kind of like a pilot light on a stove.  So when excess pressured gas hits it, it will burst into flame.  When you see a huge flame, it usually means there is a problem in the refinery operations.

During a stint at a major southeastern Texas refinery, I was about 1/2 mile from the main flare when it "went off" due to an operational situation.  The noise was absolutely deafening and we had to put our earplugs in place, and even more impressive was that you could actually "feel" the vibrations thru the ground!!!

Ok, one thing you could do to simulate a "flare" is to pick up one of the imitation battery powered candle lights used a lot at Halloween and Christmas.  With a bit of wiring, you could move the bulb to the top of the stack and keep the battery/switch in a shed nearby.

ENJOY!

Mobilman44 

 

[Rob2112]

Thanks to all that have responded!  You've all given some great advice!  I will have to scale down a bit it seems, but thats OK.  I will have to do some research on photos etc.

Anyone with pics of a chemical plant or oil terminal/refinery etc please share if you can!  I know these make great points of interest on layouts.

Oh, by the way... anyone ever "model" a "Giant torch" or whatever it is called that burns off the excess gas vapors?  Please forgive me, as I dont know what they are actually called.  I have a few ideas on how to model a "working" flame, but was wondering if anyone else had attempted too. 

[mobilman44]

Hi,

Again, my comments were in no way meant to discourage anyone from building their version of a refinery or anything else.  Having spent 40 plus years in and out of refineries and such, I find that I am "sensitive" to their size and complexity.  Thus, when I see a simply built model and its called a refinery, I try to bite my tongue and not be a critic.  Ha, usually I am successful at that.

There are small refineries out there, but many of them were shut down in the '70s or thereabouts as they were no longer viable and/or the plethora of pollution control laws made it more profitable to just shut it down and write off the assets and sell the units as scrap.  I personally know of small ones in Casper Wyoming, Augusta Kansas, Buffalo New York, East St. Louis, and East Chicago that were scrapped.  So while there are small refineries still out there, they are fewer and fewer.

I believe Autobus prime asked more about the working of a refinery.  The basic concept of a refinery is to heat crude oil in a still (think booze), and split out the various components into feedstock for the making of gasolines, fuel/diesel oils, and by products like propane, sulfer, coke (the dirtiest stuff you will ever be around), and bases for making lube oils or asphalt, etc.

Secondary units are also fueled by heat transfer (i.e. furnaces) and they further process the products mentioned above.  Note that "gasoline" that comes out of the crude refining process is only about 60 Octane, and it is blended with various other petroleum products to up the Octane to the 80 plus we all use.  Oh, some of those big round tanks in a refinery contain butanes, which is added to gasoline to pressurize it.  That allows it to easily vaporize in your engine so it will burn (only the gaseous state of gasoline will burn).

In some of the older refineries the furnaces look like something from the old Flash Gordon movies, and they are hot and dirty.   Also, those circular units with the metal rigging on top are coke towers, where the "bottom of the barrel" super heavy oil is sprayed inside and when it sets up, the rigging on top lowers huge cutters that break up the coke so it can be transported and sold.  I digress here, but one friend decided that he would use some of the coke in his BBQ, and it worked - yup it worked so well it melted the bottom out of the BBQ!!!

ENJOY,

Mobilman44

[oleirish]

Here is an try at my oil refinery"N"scale  It is not finished yet,about A hundred miles of pipe yet to go

 

 

Click to inlarge

 

JIM

 

[oleirish]

Here is an try at my oil refinery"N"scale  It is not finished yet,about A hundred miles of pipe yet to go

 

 

JIM

 

[IRONHORSE77]

ROBB

If I remember right there are several refineries over towards El Dorado, Ks.

CHUCK

[tomikawaTT]

Another possible way to "model" a refinery is to swipe a John Armstrong trick.  Put the loading rack, pump house and a minor maze of piping on the fascia side of the main track(s.)  So, where's the refinery?

You're standing in it - in the aisleway.

The same idea can be used to "model" almost anything - including a cosmetics factory.  That was a wall, 220 scale feet long, three stories tall and 2" thick that housed the local control panel.

Chuck (modeling Central Japan in September, 1964)

[Pruitt]

Here's a picture of an entire small refinery, except for the loading racks, which were off to the right in this photo:

This was the Husky reinfery in Cody, WY, which produced primarily asphalt. It's now an empty, fenced-off field. The phot was taken in about 1995, when the refinery had already been shut down for 15-20 years.

[MisterBeasley]

You could model the edge or corner of a larger refinery, and put the rest of it "on the wall."  If you make a wall backdrop and run tracks up to it, with some tanks in front of the tracks so that the cars can get "into" the refinery, you can minimize the footprint while still having a "realistically" sized facility.

[Autobus Prime]

mobilman44 wrote:

1. A lot depends on the timeframe of the layout. Refineries of the early 1900s were certainly no where near the size of the late 1900s.

2. The term "refinery" in the industry denotes where crude oil is fractionated into its various components and the products produced are gasolines, fuel/diesel oils, #6 oil, coke, and propane. The industry term for plant that produces lube oils is called a "lube oil plant". Note that in larger refineries (i.e. Mobil's Beaumont refinery) these two facilities are located together.

I think that one could look at this as akin to the steel making business as built and written up so nicely by Gil Freitag (spell?). There are a lot of corners that can be cut, but to do it justice (my opinion of course) you need a lot of space.

Having said that, only an oil nut like myself would really care about the workings in the refinery model as used on a model railroad. I suspect most would just care about the t/c and truck loading and unloading facilities and perhaps barge facilities.

mm44:

1: Definitely. In fact, the pictures I've seen of the early refineries, even up to the early 20th
century, are hardly anything like the refineries of today. They usually seemed to have a
number of fairly modern-looking storage tanks, but little in the way of towers or visible piping;
the refinery itself is usually a long brick building, with what I presume to be stills lined up in
a row, and rows of chimney-like towers. Indeed, the buildings almost look like open-hearth steel shops, and although I've found a lot of pictures, I'm having a very hard time figuring out how these old refineries worked. It doesn't help that many of the pictures were taken after horrendous infernos. :( I'd greatly welcome any information you could share on this subject.

2. You're right. However, the Bradford plant does indeed fractionate crude oil -- Penn Grade crude, to be precise -- and produces fuels, gases, solvents, and waxes, and so it really is a refinery, albeit a small one, and definitely biased towards lube oils, given the fine qualities of Pennsylvania crude in this area.

Another very modelable refinery around here is the United plant in Warren, PA. It's not huge, though much larger than the Bradford refinery, and it's in a wonderful setting - down by the Allegheny River, beside the train tracks, with the city in the background. Large advertising signs and logos on the tanks face the highway, across the river. You couldn't invent a better subject for an Ntrak module. I need to find some better pictures.

http://www.urc.com/home/home.php

You've also got a very good point about "do[ing] it justice". We've always got these trade-offs, though, and I tend to slant toward the "compression" end, because I see it as a once common but now neglected part of model railroading philosophy.

Model railroading is physical representation in miniature, but it's also a "stage play", and these industries are props. If an industry gives the impression of filling a scene, and its elements are there and correctly modeled, we can put on a convincing show, even if we are switching only 3-5 tank cars, rather than 20. In fact, switching that many cars could easily become drudgery, and a model railroad dominated by one gigantic and scale-accurate industry would likely be a lot less fun than the same one with many selectively compressed industries.

As far as the workings go, you can bet your condenser that I am interested. I suppose you can call me an oil nut, too, then. :)

[johncpo]

Rob 2112,

  Try this method for your refinery. The tops of spray paint cans make the perfect storage tanks for all sorts of applications and in your case you might try using the forced perspective idea with placing the lids back into the background of your refinery scene. Also, if you know anyone with N scale they might just fit the bill for full sized oil storage tanks in that scale.

The lids make great water storage tanks in HO as I have one painted John Deere green and yellow for my J.D. supplier. Also you could cut out the logo of various oil companies and place the names on your tanks as I did with a John Deere stick -on decal set from Hobby Lobby craft store. 

 Best of luck,

 johncpo

[mobilman44]

Good Morning! 

I certainly would not try to discourage anyone from building a refinery or chemical plant (or anything else for that matter).  

In any case, I do need to add two "howevers" to the earlier comments...

1. A lot depends on the timeframe of the layout.  Refineries of the early 1900s were certainly no where near the size of the late 1900s.  

2. The term "refinery" in the industry denotes where crude oil is fractionated into its various components and the products produced are gasolines, fuel/diesel oils, #6 oil, coke, and propane.  The industry term for plant that produces lube oils is called a "lube oil plant".  Note that in larger refineries (i.e. Mobil's Beaumont refinery) these two facilities are located together.

I think that one could look at this as akin to the steel making business as built and written up so nicely by Gil Freitag (spell?).  There are a lot of corners that can be cut, but to do it justice (my opinion of course) you need a lot of space. 

Having said that, only an oil nut like myself would really care about the workings in the refinery model as used on a model railroad.  I suspect most would just care about the t/c and truck loading and unloading facilities and perhaps barge facilities.

By the way, the latest grass roots refinery built in the US was Mobil's Joliet, Illinois refinery, which started up in 1973.  I was there from the start, and it would make a perfect model for anyone in the modern era that was really interested in the refinery per se.  It is located at I-55 and the DesPlaines River, which is close to I-80.  Also, crude and product pipelines are very close (easy connections).  And, the land was purchased from Santa Fe, which of course is the RR serving the refinery. 

Sorry to go on about it, but it really is a neat place......    All of the units (crude, FCC, CHD, coker, sulphur, etc) within the refinery were built to allow expansion (which of course has been done since then).  So the original refinery was no where near as complicated as others started before it.  Lastly, the office building was a two story work of art, with a duck pond and terrific foliage in front of it.  Oh, the tank farms (separated by function) are very neat, with the three crude tanks the size that a 747 could fit comfortably inside.

In comparison, most other refineries were started in the 1800s or very early 1900s and have been rebuilt and expanded and made extremely complicated over time.

In any case, I really would like to see folks tackle this and and would like to see the results.  One that was written up recently that looked pretty good was that of Stephen Priest and I think it was in Scale Rails but I'm not sure of that.  

Of course, the main thing is to ENJOY !!!!!

Mobilman44   

[Autobus Prime]

Same on the Chemical plants - at least those affiliated with oil refineries.  They are soooo complicated and filled with details and very large.  If you can get the right background to provide depth and give the illusion of size, that is terrific.

mm:

Right. I don't think anybody who wants an oil refinery should give up because he hasn't got a lot of space. If we did that, we'd never be able to build anything. Not all refineries are huge, either. Allow me to introduce you to American Refining Group's Bradford, PA refinery, which makes lubricating oils:

http://www.amref.com/125/

Here's an old postcard, from when it was even smaller:

http://www.cruisin66.com/oldgas/kendallrefinery.jpg

Doesn't look so unmanageable, does it? There used to be dozens of small refineries like this around here.

Now, even this plant would be very big on a model railroad. I've seen it in person, though, and
I can assure you that it's very difficult to visually "scale" an oil refinery. There aren't a lot of windows, doors, or other elements which give us known size references. It takes up a lot of the "scene", but just how much is hard to say.

This works to our benefit in a model scene. We don't have as much space, so the model doesn't have to be as big to take up most of the modeled scene. This means that, if you shrink down each element a little, take some out where it doesn't hurt plausibility, and eliminate some repetition of elements, and augment the models a little with the painted backdrop, and suggest that some stuff exists off-table, a model of the Bradford refinery could easily be built in one end of a 4 x 8 HO layout, and could easily generate the illusion of reality, even if it wasn't exact-scale.

Here is what you'll need:

-Have the major functioning features there, and modeled as closely as possible.

-With repetitive elements like tanks, don't have just one or two. There seems to be a part of our minds that counts: one, two, three, possibly four, many. I'd suggest having about five tanks, and varying the sizes a bit.

-Put in realistic detail whenever possible - pipes, valves, lights, workers, fences. This is a major pitfall I see when people build models with Walthers kits.

-Make sure that the finished model looks big enough next to the cars on the spur. It doesn't have to actually /be/ big enough (we often forget that distinction), but it does have to /look/ the part. Refineries are easier than some industries, because height can make up for a small footprint, in the mind's eye.

[mobilman44]

Same on the Chemical plants - at least those affiliated with oil refineries.  They are soooo complicated and filled with details and very large.  If you can get the right background to provide depth and give the illusion of size, that is terrific. 

By the way, during a stint at Mobil's Beaumont Texas refinery in the late '80s, I actually got to ride in the cab of their switcher, which with minor exceptions stayed on the Company property.  Ha, trust me, that place is HUGE, and is next door to Mobil's largest Chemical plant. 

The folks I was with thought I was nuts because of my love of trains.  They couldn't get over how I oogled the 4 truck tank cars - which I believe are no longer in service due to their size.

Also, I pulled a guy off the tracks as he was standing there daydreaming as a 50ft boxcar was slowly coming towards his backside.  With the wind and general noise, you could not hear it at all.  Someone did not secure the brake wheel properly.  My point, be careful around the prototypes!

ENJOY,

Mobilman44

[Walter Clot]

I wanted to model a chemical plant.  I checked books out of 3 public libraries and copied enlarged pictures of every picture in every book of the 3 libraries.  I used them for information and also for back drops which give the illusion of a bigger facility.  You could do the same for your oil refinery. 

[Rob2112]

Wow... I had no idea!  Thanks for the "Heads Up" regarding the size requiremnets.  Maybe a terminal would be a better way to go.  If any of you have that article in Scale Rails, please let me know where I might find it. 

 

Thanks for the help so far!

Rob

[Wrangler]

Rob2121,

I worked in a Chevron refinery for 32 yrs. so I have some expirance.If you were to build a refinery the real estate required would take up your whole layout and then some.In the layout that I'm building now I will incorporate a barge dock,tank car spur,2 tanks,truck loading rack and an office.

I'm in New Jersey and the tank berm requirment--the berm must have enough capasity to hold one half of the tank that it surrounds plus 6" of rain.

Vince

[mobilman44]

Rob,

  I just retired from the oil bizzness (petroleum & edible) after 40 years, and worked/visited about 10 refineries and several terminals, etc.  Obviously I have a soft spot for tank cars and such and have quite a collection.

A few years ago I decided to give those tank cars some place to go.  But, to model an HO refinery of any size that in my opinion would look remotely realistic would take up a good size area, at least 20 sq feet or more.  Also, refinerys are extremely complicated, with piping going everywhere, and various towers and buildings all over the place.  And, tankage is needed for crude oil, intermediate stage processed oils, finished products (3 grades gasoline, 2 fuel oil, slop oil, etc.), and of course dome shaped tanks for the butanes used as feedstock and propane which is a result of the refining process.  In short, the above was way too big a project for me.

So, I built an oil terminal.  Using various cornerstone kits and scratch materials I came up with a double tankcar rack, 8 storage tanks, and a truck loading rack - all with piping going to/from.  One cool thing is that you can run piping "into the ground" to go under tracks or roads and come up on the other side.  Anyway, Cornerstone has two different piping kits, Interstate fuel oil kit, various storage tanks, and the loading platforms.  Somewhere else on this forum a fellow built a beautiful strip of about 6 or 8 of these hooked together. 

My oil terminal is in 4 modules, and is currently sitting in a plastic storage box as I am moving some sidings/wiring in the area - which is why I have no picture.

Hope the above helps - and does not hurt your enthusiasm!!!

Mobilman44 

[jbinkley60]

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?   ANY help would be much appreciated!  I did see the nice Tank Farm by JPmorrison that he posted earlier this year. GREAT job!  Anyone else have refinery set up with the Oil car terminals?

Here's three prior threads on the topic:

http://www.trains.com/trccs/forums/1152856/ShowPost.aspx

http://www.trains.com/trccs/forums/740866/ShowPost.aspx

http://www.trains.com/trccs/forums/1155906/ShowPost.aspx

Scale Rails, the NMRA magazine, had a great article on an excellent looking fascility.  It was a few months back.  I'll try to find the article and see if there is a URL for the layout.

 

[Rob2112]

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?   ANY help would be much appreciated!  I did see the nice Tank Farm by JPmorrison that he posted earlier this year. GREAT job!  Anyone else have refinery set up with the Oil car terminals?