1. Messages
  2. more on asphalt cars (Unloading Road Tar)

Re: more on asphalt cars (Unloading Road Tar)

Tony Thompson
 

Bob Chaparro wrote:

 
Could someone explain the flow of material from the tank car to the tank truck?

I see a hose on the top of the tank car and another on the bottom. This picture is a little too fuzzy to make out what is being done by what appears to be a mobile pump.


   Good question, Bob, and I wondered the same thing. The tank car isn't insulated, meaning that either it has built-in steam coils or some other method must be used to liquidize the asphalt/tar. Could the line into the dome manway be a steam line, to an immersion coil? These were used elsewhere for such a purpose. I agree with Bob also that it is too bad we can't see more clearly what the mobile "pump" or whatever it is is doing, but it might have a small boiler or hot-water heater to feed a coil.

Tony Thompson             Editor, Signature Press, Berkeley, CA
2906 Forest Ave., Berkeley, CA 94705         www.signaturepress.com
(510) 540-6538; e-mail, tony@...
Publishers of books on railroad history
Join main@RealSTMFC.groups.io to automatically receive all group messages.