I am working on a layout based on a prototype in the USRA post-depression/pre-WWII era. One of the online customers (Ohio Fuel Gas) was a natural gas supplier. This is an era where the large, above ground gas storage tanks were located in the urban areas to supply low pressure gas to the area buildings. The maps I have show the company had rail sidings at a couple of their facilities, one of which was a warehouse/administration building. There was another spur that was just out in an open area that may/may not have had a building next to it. I could see the gas company receiving box cars, flats, and gons with maintenance materials and piping, but I wonder what other sort of traffic they could have had. Did anyone rail ship natural gas back then?
Jim - Preserving the history of the NKP Cloverleaf first subdivision.
I know LP gas can be shipped in tankcars, but I think "regular" natural gas as heats your house and burns in your stove isn't. Could be the gas co. did some LP gas shipping??
BTW the USRA only existed 1917-20 (World War 1 and early postwar years), and the Great Depression of 1929-41 ended when the US entered WW2 in 1941, so your "era" is kinda hard to understand.
Yes, I know the USRA period, but rolling stock of the USRA period was still around in abundance in the late 30s. I guess "Post-depression" is a bit of a misnomer. My era is set in the late 30s and prior to WWII. Sorry for the confusion.
Natural gas is shipped today as CNG or Compressed Natural Gas, but I don't think it was shipped back in the 30s and that is what I was trying to find out. DId they rail ship LP in the 30's?
Are you sure that it was natural gas and not coke gas, a by-product of the coke making process?
There's some info HERE and HERE on the use and manufacture of coke or coal gas.
That siding may have been for supplying coal for coke ovens or a gas retort.
Wayne
Pre-WWII, the gas piped to homes and industries in Da Bronx was, `Water gas,' (H2, CO and an odorant) generated by burning coal in a closed retort into which live steam was injected. The result was breakdown of the water molecules and partial combustion of the oxygen with the surplus of available carbon from the coal.
Coal delivery in NY was by barge. I could see an inland location taking delivery in hopper cars - bottom dump, possibly on a raised treatle. At that time, car dumpers were HUGE, and almost always found at rail-to-water transfer points.
Chuck (Modeling Central Japan in September, 1964)
I'm pretty sure it was natural gas. The area about 50 miles away had a major natural gas and oil discovery prior to the end of the 19th century. This caused a huge increase in industrial expansion in town and several major glass manufactures moved here from New England to take advantage of the low cost fuel. None of the maps I have seen have shown any coke or coal gas plants in the area, especially where the rail sidings were. I guess that pipelines were the normal mode of transportation in this time period and that there was no viable way to transport NG by rail in the '30s. I just wanted to make sure. Thanks for the replies.
If it was at or near a natural gas field, I would guess they were shipping out natural gas liquids (propane, butane, isobutane, LPG, natural gasoline/condensate/pentanes plus). From what I have heard, it is not economical to ship natural gas by rail.
"No soup for you!" - Yev Kassem (from Seinfeld)
When I was growing up in Southern Illinois there was no such thing as natural gas in the area. Each major city had a "gas works" that produced coal gas, since the major industry of the area was strip mining. Natural gas pipelines never entered the picture until the mines began to close.
Liquification of natural gas wasn't developed until WWII, in Germany. Prior to that, if there was a market near a well, (and natural gas wasn't sought out - it was mainly an unwanted byproduct of oil drilling), pipelines were built to feed local businesses. Otherwise, this unwanted gas was just burned off (the big flares above oil wells). Those big tanks in communities around the country were coal gas, always. One around here was only recently torn down, although it has been unused for decades.
--Randy
Modeling the Reading Railroad in the 1950's
Visit my web site at www.readingeastpenn.com for construction updates, DCC Info, and more.
There was a good article on building those large gas holding tanks in the April 1970 Model Railroader -- Jim Findley's Kimchi gas works (a notorious pun - Findley lived in Korea for a time and if you have ever eaten Kimchi, well then YOU are a natural gas works!). He described how water was used to seal the two tanks that are involved. As the tank is filled the upper tank rises and then as the gas is used up, it drops down again. I never could figure how it worked until i read Findley's article.
Findley also had an article on a compressed gas factory in the March 1971 MR. So we are talking about manufactured gas here.
Now that MR has released the all-time DVDs, it feels more appropriate to refer you to 40+ year old articles!
Make every effort to track down a copy of Railmodel Journal for May of 2002. Keith Kohlmann has an article, with lots of photos, entitled "Model a Gas Works." Railmodel Journal is no longer published I believe, but if you are an NMRA member it might be that the NMRA library can get you the article.
And again that article deals with manufactured gas.
There was a similar thread on these forums a few years ago and a guy posted this link -- just an incredible photo! And it is pretty close to your era too.
http://collections.mnhs.org/visualresources/image.cfm?imageid=73928&Page=3&Digital=Yes&EndDate=1960&Keywords=minneapolis%20gas%20light&StartDate=1900&SearchType=Basic&bhcp=1
Dave Nelson
Since pipelines were the only way natural gas was delivered, it would be a sure bet those sidings were for piping and associated hardware in building and maintaining the gas tanks.
I have done further research on this site and found earlier maps & some pictures. The site did have two spurs. One was adjacent to a warehouse building next to the company's administration building. The other spur was indeed in an open yard area that was a pipe yard. I would surmise that one would have seen box cars spotted at the warehouse building and flat cars and gondola cars spotted at the open yard spur. I can also concur that the gas was piped into the Ohio Fuel Gas Company's tanks from the gas fields that were in north central Ohio at the time.
It is interesting that those now depleted field areas are under new exploration using deep well fracking to release newly discovered deposits of natural gas. Of course there is a huge discussion on the environmental effects of recovering gas from these newly found deposits. The last exploitation in this area had no such discussion. My how times change. Thanks to all who responded to my original post. it helped a lot.