I am planning building an oil refinery, since I have ordered 10 of the Atlas 31000 gallon tank cars for my layout. I have been looking at Google Images and googled how refineries work. But I have to admit looking at how refineries are a maze of pipes and tanks, it seems a bit intimidating to attempt such a thing from scratch. I have been saving the sprues from many model kits and plastic caps from various household products. Are there any ideas or plans out there that could be roughly followed? I have track space for the 10 tankcars and about one foot by two foot space for the refinery. Any help, guidance, links, would be appreciated. Thank you.
Ted
Well Ted, I can suggest what I would do, is to take the info I see on Google images, which I just looked at myself, HO scale oil refinery kits, search and learn just how a refinery works, from raw to finished product, and plan my own arrangement, to fit the space I had to work with. Walthers offers a lot of parts, and pieces, and I think Kibri also had a kit.
I also used sprues to model piping. But different kits are availiable with valves, and such, molded in.
Have fun designing to fit your space and needs !
Mike
My You Tube
Refineries are huge operations. Set yours up next to the edge so that the tank car loading area and a few other buildings are on the layout and the rest is just off layout. Many large industries are done this way. I hope to have a coal fired power plant (shame, shame), with the plant and coal dump on the edge, coal pile and transformer farm off the layout.
Good luck,
Richard
Here is a start, http://www.processengr.com/ppt_presentations/oil_refinery_processes.pdf. Keep in mind the diagrams are simplified and there are other auxiliary vessels not shown.
Colorado School of Mines class on refining processes: http://inside.mines.edu/~jjechura/Refining/.
Chemex will post actual process flow diagrams when they have used units for sale (none currently), http://www.chemexmodular.com/inventorylist.
"No soup for you!" - Yev Kassem (from Seinfeld)
Plastruct Petro-Chemical Refinery HO, Also available in O and N
http://www.hobbylinc.com/plastruct-petro:chemical-refinery-kit-ho-scale-model-railroad-accessory-1008
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.
When I build, I use a pretty wide prototype brush, but it has to be believable.Unless you need to be 100% real you don't need to know how a refinery works, just what it looks like;lots of piipes,tanks smoke stacks,some kind of rack for loading rail and truck, will give you that apperance.
There are piping kits out there,or sprues,I have used 12ga. coated wire,but that won't give you the neat unions or valves. Tanks can come from whatever looks like a tank pvc pipe comes to mind.
The product gas/oil needs to move from point A to Point B-C. Start with a loading rack at the track,lay some pipe ,add a tank. a building smokestack.ect.
Sounds like a fun project that could be built for less then some kits.
If it looks right to you, then it must be right
just thinking outloud
Most industrial processes large enough to be rail served are so complex in nature that we "amateurs" need help is grasping the basics. Jeff Wilson's Industries Along the Tracks series of books for Kalmbach are a good first resource for this, and the first volume of the series (which I think is out of print but seen at swap meets and on Amazon) covers petroleum refining in terms we can grasp. Actually Wilson himself says that refineries are so large that they are impractical to truly model even if your layout is very large, but can be done if you focus on the loading racks with just a few of the tanks or towers (either modeled or on the backdrop) to convey the central message.
Plastruct makes a complex (daunting?) looking kit that while large itself is obviously is just a tiny portion of a real refinery or chemical plant, but it effectively conveys the message
https://www.walthers.com/petro-chemical-refinery-kit-20-x-24-quot-51-x-70cm
Vollmer and Walthers also have refinery models in the catalog. Again they are just a glimpse and the focus would best be on the loading racks.
Dave Nelson
Thank you all for your responses and great information. I plan on a reasonable facsimile of a refinery with pipes and tanks. For the room I have it will be basically the unloading area but with enough of the detail to make it look like it is a part of the real thing.
theodorefisk I have track space for the 10 tankcars and about one foot by two foot space for the refinery.
You're going to have to really compress it. Refineries are huge. There are only a handful in the country, mostly in California or Texas.
The railroad car loading area is on the edge of the complex far away from the actual refinery, past several large tanks which block the view except for some of the taller structures.
I would start with Walther's United Petroleum Refining kit
Oil Loading Platform
and Oil Tank with Berm
Besides getting ideas from the real thing, search for scale oil refineries and find ones built by other modelers.
There are 140 oil refineries in the US. The top 3 states are:
Texas: 27 refineries, 5,233,747 barrels per calendar day (29.52% of US total)
Louisiana: 19 refineries, 3,323,120 barrels per calendar day (18.74%)
California: 18 refineries, 2,052,971 barrels per calendar day (11.58%)
Lonewolf and Santa Fe You're going to have to really compress it. Refineries are huge. There are only a handful in the country, mostly in California or Texas.
Actually, smaller regional refineries were quite common. Sinclair, Wyoming, Commerce City, Colorado, Ashland, Kentucky etc., etc. Almost every oil patch had a refinery.
Ray
The photo below shows the Walters refinery (furnace, columns & heat exchangers on left) combined with the Vollmer columns on the right. The tanks shown are other kits. The Vollmer kit is a little hard to find in the U.S. at a reasonable price for the simple kit. The tank car rack is a Walthers kit. I also have some Walthers piping kits, one for crossing over the tracks, the other general piping but I have not added those yet.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Vollmer-Oil-Refinery-Kit-5525-HO-Scale-suit-OO-also-/152436003905?hash=item237de4d441:g:V1QAAOSw0fhXihoV
Paul
Modeling HO with a transition era UP bent
Hi, I am trying to figure out what makes the lids go up and down? And why does it do that?
Steve
If everything seems under control, you're not going fast enough!
The stuff in the tank. Keeps air out of the tank. Fire = heat + air + fuel. If you have air space above the tank then the vapors will mix with the air giving you an explosive mix (air + fuel). By keeping the air to a minimum you keep the risk of explosion to a minimum.
Dave H. Painted side goes up. My website : wnbranch.com
But do they just "float" on the tanks contents or is there a mechanism that controls them?
http://petrowiki.org/Oil_storage
They float
Some oil refineries receive and ship products via rolling stock other than tank cars. Catalyst for the cracking units received via covered hoppers. Packaged products like oil and grease shipped out via boxcar. Solid hazardous waste out via special containers on flat cars. Occasional delivery of large size vessels, piping, machinery and cranes via special heavy load flat cars.
Happy modeling and good luck with your "Boilin' oil" industry. Regards, Peter
The is also petroleum coke shipped in either open or covered hoppers.
Yikes, a thread about a refinery and I am only now responding!!!
I've worked at a number of refineries, most notably the Mobil (now ExxonMobil) refinery in Joliet Illinois and Beaumont Texas. The Joliet refinery was the first grass roots one built in many decades, starting up in June, 1973. Unlike most others, it was built with expansion in mind......and thus became a model for what refineries could be.
OK, a typical refinery brings in Crude oil via pipeline, barge, and the smaller refineries will also bring it in via tank car or tank truck. We are talking a lot of oil, for a decent sized refinery can process 300,000 barrels a day - a barrel being 42 gallons.
The biggest tanks are for crude storage and have fixed roofs. The gasolines (multi grades plus aviation gas) are normally stored in floating roof tanks. Diesel fuel and heating fuel are stored in solid roof tanks. By products of butanes and ethane are a gaseous state and stored in ball tanks. Petroleum coke (nasty stuff) is stored in open pits.
The crude oil is run thru various "units" to break it down into the components. The towers that you see catch the heated/evaporated crude components at the different levels. Simply put, the crude oil "fumes" will condense the heavier oils lower in the distilling units, the gasolines higher up, and the ethane/butanes at the top. From there the components are pumped to other units where the gasolines get octane boosted, finer cuts made of the different grades, etc.
Even a medium sized refinery is a huge complex. One might put some tankage and units on the edge of their layout and have a backdrop showing the "rest" of the refinery. Otherwise, a good representation of a refinery would take up an awful lot of room. Of course my take on this is likely skewed, having spent a lot of years in and around them.
On my current HO layout I too wanted a refinery. But it quickly became obvious that I could not do it justice to one "in my eyes". I did not want my entire layout to be a refinery. So I settled on a petroleum terminal, with tank car unloading in and truck deliveries out.
ENJOY !!!
ENJOY !
Mobilman44
Living in southeast Texas, formerly modeling the "postwar" Santa Fe and Illinois Central
mobilman44 Yikes, a thread about a refinery and I am only now responding!!! I've worked at a number of refineries, most notably the Mobil (now ExxonMobil) refinery in Joliet Illinois and Beaumont Texas. The Joliet refinery was the first grass roots one built in many decades, starting up in June, 1973. Unlike most others, it was built with expansion in mind......and thus became a model for what refineries could be. OK, a typical refinery brings in Crude oil via pipeline, barge, and the smaller refineries will also bring it in via tank car or tank truck. We are talking a lot of oil, for a decent sized refinery can process 300,000 barrels a day - a barrel being 42 gallons. The biggest tanks are for crude storage and have fixed roofs. The gasolines (multi grades plus aviation gas) are normally stored in floating roof tanks. Diesel fuel and heating fuel are stored in solid roof tanks. By products of butanes and ethane are a gaseous state and stored in ball tanks. Petroleum coke (nasty stuff) is stored in open pits. The crude oil is run thru various "units" to break it down into the components. The towers that you see catch the heated/evaporated crude components at the different levels. Simply put, the crude oil "fumes" will condense the heavier oils lower in the distilling units, the gasolines higher up, and the ethane/butanes at the top. From there the components are pumped to other units where the gasolines get octane boosted, finer cuts made of the different grades, etc. Even a medium sized refinery is a huge complex. One might put some tankage and units on the edge of their layout and have a backdrop showing the "rest" of the refinery. Otherwise, a good representation of a refinery would take up an awful lot of room. Of course my take on this is likely skewed, having spent a lot of years in and around them. On my current HO layout I too wanted a refinery. But it quickly became obvious that I could not do it justice to one "in my eyes". I did not want my entire layout to be a refinery. So I settled on a petroleum terminal, with tank car unloading in and truck deliveries out. ENJOY !!!
Excellent information. Thank you. I will save it for future reference.
Mobilman, great to have the input from a person who has worked at a refinery. The Joliet Exxon refinery is not far from where I live so I will drive by and take a look. Thank you.
I have another question. I have been goggling images of the 31000 gallon tankcars as well as unloading facilities. Do the tankcars with crude oil unload through a valve in the bottom of the car?
Heavy oils - be it petroleum or vegetable - will use tank cars with steam coils inside. At the unloading dock, a steam line will be hooked to the tank car and the steam (within the pipes inside the car) will heat up the crude, and allow it to flow much more easily out of the bottom of the tank car.
These days heavy oils may be pumped out of the top of the cars, but I don't have first hand knowledge of that.
There are a hundred or more types of crude oil, some fairly thin in consistency (best refining results) and some thick like "glue".
mobilman44 Heavy oils - be it petroleum or vegetable - will use tank cars with steam coils inside.
Heavy oils - be it petroleum or vegetable - will use tank cars with steam coils inside.
Rich
Alton Junction
NO, absolutely not.
I worked for three edible oil refineries. Vegetable oil tank cars were dedicated, and were steam cleaned inside after use (yes, a person went inside the cars to wash them out). This allowed the cars to go from say soybean to coconut oil to corn oil, etc.
Petroleum tankcars were also dedicated insofar as crudes, gasolines, fuel oils, and other. Crude cars were typically used only for crude, but the product cars could be interchanged with other petroleum based goods (after a thorough cleaning).
That said, in no case would petroleum tankcars be used for edible oils - or vice versa.
Thanks for that info.
Mobilman44,
A very good friend of mine got killed in an explosion at the Union 76 refinery near Joliet, IL. In the early 80's. He was a pipe fitter and a very tall likeable guy...James Bruno...RIP.
http://articles.chicagotribune.com/1994-08-03/news/9408030340_1_refinery-explosion-mushroom-cloud-fire
Take Care!
Frank
Frank, sorry to hear about that. Petroleum refineries are very dangerous places to work. Safe guards by the company, industry, OSHA are there, but the fact remains the business deals with highly volatile and dangerous substances.
Yes, the "oil bizzness" pays big bucks, but they are earned.
Frank, RIP to your friend and the other oil refinery workers who perished that day long ago.
Having spent 30 years working as a company mechanic at a large oil refinery I can attest to the high level of danger involved. Lots of horror stories. But during my time working there that began in the late 70s I saw big leaps forward in safety and pollution emissions.
More on topic must say that I was the only one in the crew who didn't mind getting held up at the R/R crossing on the way back to the barn. Ah, squealing flanges & the loud revving up and belching exhaust of the EMD switcher as it struggled to pull a string of loaded tank cars up from the LPG loading racks.
Regards, Peter
Thanks, Mobilman and Peter,
That was a sad day for sure...I was out of town at the time and could not make the wake. I was told it was a closed casket, with His picture on the top. We hung around together since high school, but that was in the late 50's.