50' Tank Cars

[Anonymous]

I probably should have asked here first but better late than never. I,m
modeling a modern ethanol plant and bought a 50' GATX tanker, will this be
accurate?, because there are a bunch more numbers for these out there
thanks for the help in figuring out what all will work.[^]

[AntonioFP45]

Hello Danny,

Sounds good.

BTW: check out the Walthers 54ft. 23,000 gallon Funnel Flow Tank cars, which carry petroleum related liquids. (See page 172 in the 2005 HO Walthers Catalog)

Also, if I'm not mistaken, one of the ingredients of Ethanol is Corn oil. 40 foot, 16,000 gallon Tank cars carry corn oil. (See page 171)

Hopefully, some of the people that model industries that utilize tank cars will chime in.

Cheers!

[ericsp]

Ethanol is usually shipped in slightly larger cars, 27,000 to 30,000 gallons but definitely could be shipped in smaller cars. I would not worry about it unless you want everything to be exactly prototypical.

If you want to model the larger cars, you could kit ba***he Athearn 62' tankcars. Remove the underframe (between trucks) and running boards, make the plaform a bit narrower, and put on a new ladder. This will make a close approximation to the modern 29,000 to 30,000 gallon tankcars. Or, if it is a MDC tankcar, find a tube of the same diameter as the car, cut the car on each side of the platform in the middle, insert 5 scale foot to 7.5 scale foot sections on each side of platfrom and cement back together. Since Walthers cars are funnel flows, this would not work on them.

As for the feedstock, it usually comes in as corn in covered hoppers. There are some smaller ethanol plants that run other, unusual feedstocks.

[cspmo]

QUOTE: Also, if I'm not mistaken, one of the ingredients of Ethanol is Corn oil.

I use to work security at an ADM plant that make Ethanol,only commodity that came into the plant, by rail is corn. Only commodity that left the plant by rail is ethanol, distiller dry grain ( a byproduct ).
Corn Germ that was remove from the corn, before distillation, is ship by truck to another plant to make corn oil.

[Anonymous]

WOW! Thanks for the great info. I am bringing in the corn by covered
hopper but was kind of vague on the other rolling stock, now I'm trying to
decide wether to ship the dryage out by rail or truck or both.[;)]