Petroleum Refinery's

[Anonymous]

I want to model a refinery and I would like to get some information on track layout and details. Can anyone help me.

[thirdrail1]

Most refineries move the vast preponderance of their raw materials and finished product by pipeline and ship, so rail loading facilities are limited to specialty products in tank cars and hoppers. Hoppers? Yes, the lowest end of the refining process yields petroleum coke, which is loaded in open hoppers just like coal and coke made from coal. The trackage for a refinery is fairly straighforward, one or more tank car loading tracks with loading platforms alongside them. The coke is usualy loaded inside a building to prevent dust becoming windborne.

[Anonymous]

Thank you for your response.

[DocDan]

Walthers has a newsletter online which can be viewed with Adobe. One of their issues last year discussed modelling refineries. Of course it's all intended to promote their products but there were good ideas there anyway. Just go over to www.walthers.com. Good luck.

Dan

[Anonymous]

I am also planning a large refinery complex on my new railroad. as for tracks, I plan to have a branch line running near the refinery with 1 track coming in. that track will split off with one going to a part of the complex that produces the chemical and plastic pellets, the other track will go to the tank car loading racks, which will be 11 walthers loading racks attached together. one thig to remember in a refinery are the pipes. there are pipes everywhere, crossing over tracks and over the roads, and going from the fields of storage tanks to the refinery, then back out to the storage tanks, and to the loading racks. a good place to find some photos is to go to the microsoft terraserver, they have aireal photos taken by the USGS. a good place to look is Texas City TX or baytown TX. there is a high concentration of refineries there. the web address is www.terraserver.microsoft.com i think. most of the products coming into and out of a refinery travel by pipe, but that wouldnt look too good for a railroad. seems the product coming out by rail the most is liquid petroleum gas (LPG) moving by those 33,000 gal. tank cars. for details, refineries at night have a large ammount of lights everywhere, also it would be surrounded by chain link fence. dont forget the ofices, and parking lot, and a truck loading facility.


have fun at this one