Looking for HO scale refinery?

[Anonymous]

Hey Everyone

I am looking for an HO scale refinery.

I found a couple:
Walthers North Island Refinery (sold out)
Vollmer
Plastrust.

But none of them look like a real refinery.

Any suggestions?

[Anonymous]

From what I have seen, the problem is that the refinery kits are way too small relative to what a real refinery would be. Perhaps they could be a model of a process within a refinery. As far as suggestions go, I guess you could get several kits and make one installation from them, or scratch build additional refinery equipment. Another idea comes to mind as I type this; use a couple of the kits in the fore ground and have a background picture for the rest of the refinery. These are my thoughts, anyway.

[GAPPLEG]

Actually the Walthers refinery isn't that bad, I have seen refineries in odd places that weren't much bigger than that. Go on I-40 between Grants and Gallup NM. the Giant refinery, isn't !! . It's very small, It's owned by one of the indian tribes I believe, and the gas is sold mostly at their own stations. On my layout I actually used the n scale refinery in an Ho layout just ti get the representation of a local type refinery. Some work to be done yet but it looks ok.

[Pruitt]

Another relatively small refinery (that doesn't exist anymore - but I got pictures before they bulldozed it! [:D]) was the Husky refinery in Cody, Wyoming. In fact, there were many small refineries all over the oil producing lands of the west,m in the 1930s-1950s.

The biggest problem with the plastic refinery models is with the handrails, walkways and such. They're so out of scale (the handrails are roughly a scale foot in diameter!) that they make the entire thing look toylike.

I received one of the Walthers refineries as a gift, and I plan on doing a lot of modifications to eliminate the grossly out-of-scale features.

[GAPPLEG]

Hence my logic of using the N scale refinery in HO, it really looks better overall in my setting.

[Anonymous]

any specific kits though??

[GAPPLEG]

Mine was a Walther n scale refinery. I don't know if they still have it. pictures at my photobucket site.

[cwclark]

kibry (volmer kit) and plastruct make refinery kits in HO...heres a pick of one plastruct and two volmer refineries that i kit bashed on my layout

[Anonymous]

I know that you didn't ask this, but ......

I've been checking into this, because I grew up in a town with a refinery and I've been thinking of building a module of one. It seems to me that a refinery would be extremely easy to scratchbuild. Its all tanks and pipes. Even the refiners themselves are basically really tall tanks, with various other shapes. I got Plastruct's big catalog and everything is in there, in all sizes, including all sorts of valving. It could be a small refinery that just produces heating oil. Or a huge place that further refines the oil into various gasolines. Plus various chemical by products.

That's what I'm going to do, anyway. It will be my first scratchbuilding, but it will be all plastic, pretty easy I think.

Hope you find your kit, though.

Greg

[GAPPLEG]

That plastruct refinery is nice, but mucho expensive, most of plastructs products are a little on the pricey side. I like your refinery CW, looks nice.

[cwclark]

QUOTE: Originally posted by YardGoat18

I know that you didn't ask this, but ......

It seems to me that a refinery would be extremely easy to scratchbuild. Its all tanks and pipes. Even the refiners themselves are basically really tall tanks, with various other shapes. That's what I'm going to do, anyway. It will be my first scratchbuilding, but it will be all plastic, pretty easy I think.

Hope you find your kit, though.

Greg

I hate to break the news to you, but this was the hardest modeling project i ever took on!...I had to build each individual bend in each of the pipes and some of it was harder than all get out to glue together...a lot of the piping had to be redone because it's so hard to get a piece bent straight enough to follow the contours of each column...I even had to hold some parts together with a pair of tweezers until the glue dried so it wouldn't slip out of position...I started this refinery in early August and got thru with it in the middle of January and i worked on it nearly every day...it's a really hard thing to build...chuck

[Anonymous]

Dang, Chuck ....... you really burst my bubble there. [:)]

I have not done this before, so I may be way off base here. I can't seem to find my Plastruct catalog right now, so maybe I'm wrong, but .......

I thought the parts went together easily. I would pick a size of pipe (actually hard plastic tubing), such as 1/8", and I would have plenty of ready-made lengths of pipe, tee's, elbows, etc ready to go. The peices fit together like PVC pipe, or some other male/female fit system. Things like this .....

http://plastruct.com/Pages/Action.lasso?-database=PI.PRODUCTS.fp5&-Layout=Complete&-Response=OnlineProductDetail.html&-op=eq&CCode=EF-4&-Search

I thought it was going to be so easy, that I was going to connect the industrial buildings I already have on my layout with piping like this, to make it more like an old industrial complex with steam pipes going all around.

I guess I'll have to buy just a few pieces at first , and see just what I am getting myself into.

Greg

[Walter Clot]

My interest is in a chemical plant which features many of the same things as a refinery. I checked out all the books on chemical plants and refineries from two public libraries and a college library. I copied all the pictures, trimmed them up and fixed them to the background. I scratch built a refracting tower with a tomato stake, the ends of a roll of butcher paper, sprues and a few other things. I also made some tanks out of an unpainted Christmas tree ball, the larger end of two plastic Easter eggs, spray can tops and a few other odds and ends. I'm not very good at this sort of thing, but it came out pretty well. Give it a try. "The Route of the Appy Sou " Walter C.

[Courage8]

A trip through the plumbing section of the nearest Home Depot or similar store will probably yield a goldmine of refinery type details for you.  I had pretty good luck making bulk storage tanks out of end caps for 6-inch PVC drain pipe.  Similar tanks can be made from unions of the same diameter (though you have to add a cardstock or sheet styrene top to them.  With sanding and painting, they look great, and cost a buck or two each, as opposed to $20 or so for a kit.  Toilet bowel floats (spherical) can be used for round tanks or what the chemical plant people might call "spherical accumulators".  Welding rod or brass tubing can be used for piping. 

 Good luck!  We need more oil!

[GTX765]

Cabbose hobbies has the HO NORTH ISLAND REFINERY, I have this structure and all I can say is take you time. Its not an easy build but you can add alot to it as you go. I do like it but plastic its plastic.

 

http://www.caboosehobbies.com/catalog/advanced_search_result.php?scales_name=&roadnames_name=&alpharoad=&categories_id=146&inc_subcat=1&manufacturers_id=1115&sku=09333013&keyword2=&maxrow=50&Reset=Reset%21&x=0&y=0

The SKU is 09333013 

$33.74 

[pastorbob]

When Walthers first brought out the North Island refinery, I bought three of them.  I was modeling the old Champlin refinery in Enid Oklahoma, which was sold a few times, eventually torn down in late 1980's.  Some old timers may remember the brand.  Champlin was home owned when I grew up there in the 40's and 50's, and was small in size, and rather dirty.

Anyway I added some storage tanks, kitbashed two and one half of the three refinery kits, added some pieces from other sources and am pretty happy with the results.  But you need a working understanding of the parts of a refinery to do one correctly, at least in my opinion.  Depends on how authenic you want to be.

 

[tatans]

kibry (volmer kit) and plastruct make refinery kits in HO...heres a pick of one plastruct and two volmer refineries that i kit bashed on my layout

Great looking refinery, is this not the cleanest refinery in all the world?

[davekelly]

cwclark,

Excellent job on the refinery!! 

Dave

[markpierce]

From what I have seen, the problem is that the refinery kits are way too small relative to what a real refinery would be. Perhaps they could be a model of a process within a refinery. As far as suggestions go, I guess you could get several kits and make one installation from them, or scratch build additional refinery equipment. Another idea comes to mind as I type this; use a couple of the kits in the fore ground and have a background picture for the rest of the refinery. These are my thoughts, anyway.

There is (or leastwise there was six years ago) a refinery very close in size to the Walthers model located on Hwy. 6, somewhere between Tonopah and Currant.  It serves a small oil field there.  Of course, it is way too small to give the impression of any of the several refineries located within a few miles of my home.  I'd just model the car-loading area and have the rest of the refinery as a two-dimensional image on a backdrop, or imagine it being off the layout, for the typical refinery.

Mark

[markpierce]

 We need more oil!

Some people will soon find, or have recently already found, a new or reactivated oil well operating in their neighborhood.

Mark

[ericsp]

From what I have seen, the problem is that the refinery kits are way too small relative to what a real refinery would be. Perhaps they could be a model of a process within a refinery. As far as suggestions go, I guess you could get several kits and make one installation from them, or scratch build additional refinery equipment. Another idea comes to mind as I type this; use a couple of the kits in the fore ground and have a background picture for the rest of the refinery. These are my thoughts, anyway.

There is (or leastwise there was six years ago) a refinery very close in size to the Walthers model located on Hwy. 6, somewhere between Tonopah and Currant.  It serves a small oil field there.  Of course, it is way too small to give the impression of any of the several refineries located within a few miles of my home.  I'd just model the car-loading area and have the rest of the refinery as a two-dimensional image on a backdrop, or imagine it being off the layout, for the typical refinery.

Mark

It was Foreland Refining as of January 1, 2007. It had 2,000 BPD crude atmospheric distillation capacity. Their website address is now up for sale, so I am guessing that the refinery is closed, or perhaps sold.

You can search this list for similar sized refineries.
http://www.eia.doe.gov/pub/oil_gas/petroleum/data_publications/refinery_capacity_data/current/refcap07.pdf

[markpierce]

Ah Hah!  Foreland Refining:

http://ndep.nv.gov/docs_06/nev90055_f06.pdf

Mark

[Rotorranch]

If this link works, http://www.mapquest.com/maps/Wood+River+IL/#a/maps/l:::Wood+River:IL::US:38.861099:-90.097504:city:Madison+County/m:hyb:10:38.862735:-90.084733:0::/io:0:::::f:EN:M:/e

...you can see a big refinery, as well as the remnants from another. The defunct refinery was Standard Oil. Zoom in a little, and scroll around. There is a LOT of stuff there, and used to be a lot more, when I lived there as a kid.

It was a great happening when the refinery would get hit by lightning and catch fire. There would be people parked next to the refinery fence, sitting on cars, watching the fire.

Rotor

[es2sp]

It appears that, like most other industrial facilities, oil refineries come in a wide variety of sizes. Probably the most useful types of refineries (to those of us who want to model a full size refinery in a reasonable space) would be the prefabricated "mini-refineries" currntly on he market or small, used refineries built decades ago that are relocated to third-world countries (usually). Generally the ones that would fit would be less than 20,000 barrels per day (bpd) capacity.

Here are a few items that might be of use in planning a refinery:

Oil & Gas Journal, March 18, 1996 pages 68-70 "Siberian company starts up modular refinery" 

This artical has an isometric cadd drawing on the upper half of page 70 (but not in perspective fortunately, so easy to accurately measure off of) of a small skid-mounted modular mini-refinery. I used the 3'-7" height from the bottom of a tower platform to the top of its railing (from a petroleum refining handook) to scale the drawing. It is complete with crude and vacuum towers (65 feet tall each) a reformer unit (which produces hydrogen to create and stabilze gasoline by hydrotreating naptha and kerosene coming from from the crude unit). The crude unit does the initial separation of the crude oil into gases, "light ends" (to reformer) and heavier residues (to the vacuum tower). There are 7 small vertical "common heaters" which are 38-ft tall max including stack, and between 6'-6" and 10'-3" in diameter. I'm guessing the smallest 3 heaters would go with the reformer and at least one each of the larger ones would be with the crude and vacuum towers. The drawing doesnt show any piping though. This looks to be a relatively simple scratchbuilding project except for the cones on top of the heaters. A good idea is to save the sprues from other kits to use as piping (many nice 90-degree curves and Tee connections if you look closely).

The reformer is on four 8X11x26 ft skids fitted side-by-side (with a boxy 15'-3" high air coolers on top of 3 skids), and there is one 8x11x26 skid associated with both the crude and vacuum towers. Apparently all of the refinery's pumps and heat exchangers are on these 6 skids. The artical mentions that the refinery supplied to Siberia was for 2000 bpd of crude oil input, with a 640 bpd reformer producing that much of the Russian equivalent to 89-octane gasoline. There is no control room shown but the one from the Chemexinc 6000 BPD refinery floor plan (link below) or any small prefab metal building or shipping-container type modular office could be used. I'm assuming that the drawing depicts that 2000-bpd refinery. The whole refinery was designed and built by Ventech of Pasadena, Texas, then assembled onsite in Urai, Siberia. 

Engineering News-Record of November 15, 1962 has a 2-page article showing a totally complete 8000 bpd Esso refinery mounted on a 80'x180'X17' concrete barge. It was built in Antwerp, Belgium and towed to Brega in (pre-Khadafi) Libya. Unfortunately only a few grainy photos, no drawings.

The website of a well-known mini-refinery manufacturer in Bakersfield, California: They have PDF-format brochures of a tiny 40-ft container-sized 625 bpd "topping" refinery with plans and a floor plan for a 6000 bpd topping refinery on their website:

http://www.chemexinc.com/minirefineries.html 

A russian mini-refinery manufacturers' website with plans of several sizes of modular topping refineries:

http://www.stavropol.ru/reotek/doc_en.htm

A 6000 bpd refinery proposal to the Jicarilla Apache Tribe in New Mexico is here:

http://www.osti.gov/bridge/purl.cover.jsp;jsessionid=3431F9F6A3EAB14DCBC3384ACC7EC3A6?purl=/843097-B09pEF/native/

Has some interesting flow diagrams which would show the correct piping connections. The main crude tower is 70 feet tall and 5 feet in diameter, according to the report. On page 43 is a general layout plan of the whole refinery with tanks, loading facilities, etc. which might be useful for modelers. The refinery has no rail connection though. The tank sizes are (I assume) in proportion to the refinery capacity so for a 2000 bpd refinery like the one mentioned above the tank sizes would be 6000bpd/2000bpd or 1/3 of those shown on the plan.

An online patent which has useful drawings for refinery modeling:

http://www.wipo.int/pctdb/en/wo.jsp?wo=2003031012

I havent looked at these articles yet but they may be useful-please let me know if they have useable drawings:

Chemical Week, vol. 126 no. 14, April 1980, page 47-?

"Low density polyethylene plant on a barge" (the website I found this on says the barge was 300'longx73.8'widex175'high max at the top of the flare. If it has useable drawings it would make a good petrochem plant, only a little over 10" wide and 41 3/8" long-put it against the backdrop of the layout with loading/ mainline tracks in front.

Oil & Gas Journal: Oct 15, 1979 (vol 77 no 42) p. 148-168 and December 1973 p. 146-147

From a table of standard API tank sizes in a petroleum refining handbook I looked up; the Walthers tall tank is about 11,000 barrels, their low tank is around 14,500 barrels, and the Kibri tall and short storage tanks are about 3000 and 2000 barrels, respectively. 

Does anyone have the diameter (wide and narrow part) and height (in scale feet) of the Walthers refinery main fractionating (crude?)column? Or a guess of its capacity (bpd?)

Roger

[ericsp]

I would guess the Walthers refinery's capacity to be around 7,500 BPSD, perhaps up to 10,000 BPSD. Compare it with this aerial photograph of a relatively simple 25,000 BPSD refinery (http://www.sjr.com/capabilities.asp). Another problem with it is that it is little more than a crude distillation unit, you can't model many more processes with just it.

[RedGrey62]

While these guys don't have refinery details per se, except for tanks, they do have some pretty nice stuff for the loading facilities and other details.  A little more expensive than plastic by just another option.

http://www.traincat2.com/

Rick

[bnsf76]

The Walther's kits are actually pretty good, they are just way too small.  (For the record, the N scale Walther's kit should still be available; for the HO kit, you will have to search online.)  I have 3 of these kits, and yes, the handrails are too big.  Note though, that there was a deluxe version that came with brass handrails that looks a lot better; one of my kits is the deluxe version.  I also have one of the Volmer kits.  I'm not impressed with it and I don't think it looks appropriate (even with several kits) by itself.  However, it will look okay added to the Walther's kits.  The Plastruct kit looks okay, but is still not appropriate by itself, no matter how many kits you use.  Also, the Plastruct and Volmer kits are a bit expensive, at least for what you get.

I will put the deluxe version in the foreground, the two regular versions slightly behind (along with the Volmer kit), and then maybe use various PVC products to make some background structures.  And of course I want to find a good backdrop to use as well.  I may use N scale kits near the backdrop to represent distant refineries...have not decided yet.

As far as tanks go, I found a large diameter PVC pipe (8 or 10 inch) at Lowe's that is almost identical in diameter to the Walther's tall tank; you will have to add the roof of the tank though.  These work great for tanks in the background.

bnsf76

[tomikawaTT]

I got Plastruct's big catalog and everything is in there, in all sizes, including all sorts of valving.

Greg

IIRC, Plastruct got their start manufacturing miniature parts to be used by petroleum and structural engineers needing to assemble three dimensional models of refineries to make sure everything would fit before assembling the 1:1 scale version.

On a slightly different note, the larger modern refineries, like container ports and steel mills, are probably best modeled as photo murals on the backdrop, with loading racks or similar being the only three-dimensional space consumers.

John Armstrong attacked from the other direction.  He put the loading racks, a couple of tanks and a maze of plumbing between the tracks and the fascia line - and 'modeled' the (virtual) refinery in the aisleway...

Chuck (modeling Central Japan in September, 1964)

 

[RedGrey62]

As far as tanks go, I found a large diameter PVC pipe (8 or 10 inch) at Lowe's that is almost identical in diameter to the Walther's tall tank; you will have to add the roof of the tank though.  These work great for tanks in the background.

bnsf76

I had a friend recently do this, he's building a refinery module set.  He took the large diameter PVC pipe and measured for equal horizontal weld lines then used a large hose clamp around the pipe and the back of an exacto blade to scribe them.  He added the the vetical lines with a straight edge after he marked the placement.  His tanks using floating roofs so he added the stairs with wheels so that as fuel level raises and lowers, so would the stairs.  I may be able to post some pics if anyone is interested.

Rick

Edit:  Here's teh pick of the tanks, the one in foreground was built from PVC as were the cluster of 3 towards the back. Agian, these are on a friends module.

 

[ndbprr]

Years ago I made a small chemical plant using aluminum cigar tubes for frac columns and variety of shapes like Leggs pantyhose containers for tanks so they can be done fairly cheaply if one wishes to spend the time necessary. That being said I have changed my total approach to modeling large scale plants of any kind at this point.  I think they need to modeled in absentia.  Put a picture of a large refinery from a distance on your backdrop.  Put trees or a hill so only the tops of the various structures show and model the interchange between the plant and the railroad with a track disappearing that the plant switcher would come to the yard to get the cars. The Whiting Indiana BP refinery must get 2-300 tank cars a day as well as catylysts and equipment.  The same thing can be done for an auto plant or steel mill much more realistically then trying to compress everything.  Peoples imagination will be far more effective than an actual plant leaving room for two or three interchange tracks and will be far better in my opinion.