Claus Schlund wrote:

Why would a car intended to be used for dry ice retain roof hatches? I mean, dry ice maintains a colder temperature than you can make using ice and salt alone...

The ice bunker hatches are certainly not in use; they are just from the car's former life. As you say, the cargo refrigerated itself.

Tony Thompson Editor, Signature Press, Berkeley, CA
2906 Forest Ave., Berkeley, CA 94705 www.signaturepress.com
(510) 540-6538; fax, (510) 540-1937; e-mail, thompson@...
Publishers of books on railroad history

On Feb 25, 2009, at 8:22 PM, Tim O'Connor wrote:

I'll bet not too many layouts have a guy sitting on
a chair next to the yard throat, ready to throw that
switch...

http://tbn0.google.com/hosted/images/c?q=63aa8efb7477cb32_large

It's a 1942 view of an SP yard -- note the three PRR
box cars on the far track, and the 50' single sheathed
box car.

*I* happened to notice that it's a puzzle switch the tender
is throwing.
--
Nolan Hinshaw, native Californian since 1944
Scenescent in the Outer Sunset since 1971

Bill and all,
 
I'm sure Bill is referring to Citizens Coke and Gas Utility in Indianapolis.  It was shut down over a year ago and is being dismantled as we speak.
 
CC&G coke was a good source of car loadings for the Monon and NKP in our era.  They also shipped tar and molten sulfur, both by products of the coke making process. I was surprised to learn that a lot of the traffic on the Monon went to smaller mills and foundaries all over the midwest. 
 
I had incorrectly assumed that the loads always went to the large mills in the Calumet Region.
 
Mont Switzer

Hi Dave, Richard, and List Members,

The car in the image appears to have roof hatches.

Why would a car intended to be used for dry ice retain roof hatches? I mean, dry ice maintains a colder temperature than you can make using ice and salt alone...

From Wikipedia: "Dry ice sublimes, changing directly to a gas at atmospheric pressure. Its sublimation and deposition point is ?78.5 ?C (?109.3 ?F)."

- Claus Schlund

On Feb 27, 2009, at 9:26 AM, cj riley wrote:

Are we going back to the coal tar discussion?

I certainly hope not, CJ - I don't want to read another word about
the infamous J&L tank cars. However, the CISX cars in question could
not have been used for coal tar because it was flammable, and
therefor a regulatory commodity as defined by the ICC.

Richard Hendrickson

Mal Houck wrote:

That [gas production] was the most common source of coke.

Compared to steelmaking uses? I seriously doubt it. But maybe you mean for fuel use outside of the in-plant or in-company consumption of coke made for blast furnaces.

Tony Thompson Editor, Signature Press, Berkeley, CA
2906 Forest Ave., Berkeley, CA 94705 www.signaturepress.com
(510) 540-6538; fax, (510) 540-1937; e-mail, thompson@...
Publishers of books on railroad history

On Feb 26, 2009, at 10:48 PM, Dave Nelson wrote:

Am looking for more information of the cars of the Pure Carbonic
company.
Here's an image of one such car:

<<http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://
www.northeast.railfan.net/im
ages/dicx208.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.northeast.railfan.net/
rolling11.html&u
sg=__TXY0x8g4zcrEXJRNps8E5WqMhi8=&h=576&w=718&sz=52&hl=en&start=1&um=1
&tbnid
=COdtszlR7zSyMM:&tbnh=112&tbnw=140&prev=/images%3Fq%3Ddicx%2Bcars%
26um%3D1%2
6hl%3Den%26rlz%3D1T4GGLG_enUS309US309%26sa%3DN>>

The pre-1950 cars all seem to be 13'6" (like in the image) or 13'
4" to the
top of the running boards.

Were these cars entirely "custom" (on the outside) or might I find
something
similar enough for anything in the HO scale market to use or kitbash?
Opinions?

Any pointers to where I might find other car images would also be most
welcome.

Dave, DICX reporting marks were originally assigned to the American
Dry Ice Corporation Refrigerator Line of New York, but in the
mid-1930s its cars, along with the reporting marks, were taken over
by the Merchants Despatch Transportation Co. subsidiary of the New
York Central System, where the DICX fleet grew in size to about 250
cars by the early 1950s. Pure Carbonic, which was a division of the
Air Reduction Co., Inc., leased its cars from MDT, but not all of the
DICX were leased to Pure Carbonic; there were other dry ice
shippers. The photos I've seen show that all of the DICX cars of
that vintage appear to be conventional wood-sheathed refrigerator
cars which have been converted for dry ice loading by adding very
heavy insulation. A common feature was the application of extra-
strength strap door hinges owing to the added weight of the
insulation on the doors. I have photos of DICX 128, DICX 218, and
DICX 283 which I can scan and send to you off-list.

Richard Hendrickson

Are we going back to the coal tar discussion?

CJ Riley

Thanks Mal, for confirming what I long suspected. Having lived in Pittsburgh for many years, The smell of leaking coke furnaces is very familiar to me.

CJ Riley

On Feb 26, 2009, at 9:50 PM, Frank Fertitta wrote:

Try this Richard -

Shell-and-tube heat exchangers, and some large, industrial liquid
heaters have their tube bundles in a single pass (steam in the top
connection through internal copper U-tubes with condensate out the
bottom connection) configuration built so that the whole assembly
can be removed for repair. They are usually installed at the bottom
of the tank and removed horizontally. While the bundle is being
repaired, if the tank is required to be in continuous service, it
is not unusual to see a blind flange covering the mating flange
surface.

Is it possible that a tank car not originally built with serpentine
steam coils could be modified with connections for an internal,
removable tube bundle for heating liquids requiring viscosity
encouragement (paraffin perhaps) and then later removed?

Seems like that's as good a guess as any, Frank. But it begs the
question of what sort of non-inflammable liquid C-I steel would be
shipping that required ten 12,600 gal. tank cars with heaters.

Richard Hendrickson

Hi, All.
I started a new group for letting members know of private layouts
that can be visited. Since a lot of buzz has been out here dealing
about clubs folding, I thought that this would be an great opportunity
for model railroaders to know.
The group is called Home train layouts. If you wish to subscribe,
Hometrainlayouts-subscribe@...
Thanks, Dennis

All;



Let's look at what we know:



1) The car was owned by Carnegie-Illinois Steel (the steel, and
incidentally, coke and coke-by-product maker), and was;



2) ...stenciled for loading with non- regulatory commodities only and had
frangible disk vents instead of
spring-loaded safety valves, so whatever oil it might have carried
certainly wasn't petroleum based, if it was oil at all, and probably
would not have required a tank heater.



3) that big plate in the end of CISX 2774 is overkill for a cleanout, and
I'm open to an
alternative explanation of its purpose, but no one has, as yet, come
up with anything more plausible.



I'm still hoping that someone on the list who knows more about steel making
than I do can come up with
an explanation (n.b. not just speculation) of what cargo those ten cars were
used to carry; we might then be better able to account for
the big round plate on the end.



OK, here are the liquid commodities used in, or produced by, the steel
industry at that point in time:



Used:



a) Light oils used in iron and steel-making facilities for lubrication (mill
machinery, for example);



b) sulphuric and hydrochloric acid, for treating semi-finished and finished
steel (which was shipped in 103-B tanks with small dome (1%) with top loading
and unloading valving, not these guys) ;



c) clay, for use in "mud" guns (!);



Not likely that products used were shipped in in CIS tank cars, but rather,



Produced:



d) waste acid (usually processed close to the facility, carried in converted
open top or covered hoppers, and sump in sludge pits for treatment);



e) coal tar - highly viscous (in fact, different viscosities within a given
shipment) liquid that could require heating to get it to liquefy enough for
draining. I recall stories about what people had to do to get this, and
creosote, out of a tank car;



f) creosote; see above. The amount of creosote created at Clairton, largest
of USS' coke facilities, was 23,800 gal/day, about 2-3 tank cars per day (see
below), c. 1955 (1960 in blue). Just coincidence?



Creosote:

23,800 gal/day

~16,000 gal/day (Equivalent: 2 tank cars per day)



g) Others: Benzol, Pure:

~64,640 gal/day

~44,000 gal/day (Equivalent: 5.5 tank cars every day)

Benzol, Motor:

~2,800 gal/day

~2,000 gal/day (Equivalent: 1 tank car every 4 days)

Toluol:

17,300 gal/day

11,750 gal/day (Equivalent: 1.5 tank cars every day)

Xylol:

6,250 gal/day

4,250 gal/day (Equivalent: 1 tank car every 2 days)

Pyridine 2:

12,000 gal/day

~8,000 gal/day (Equivalent: 1 tank car/day)

Napthalene; 78 Degree:

13,300 gal/day

~8,000 gal/day (Equivalent: 1 tank car per day)

Solvent Naptha, Refined, #2:

620 gal/day

420 gal/day (Equivalent: 1 tank car every 10 days)

Solvent, Naptha, Crude, #2:

5,200 gal/day

3,500 gal/day (Equivalent: 1 tank car every 2 days)

Solvent, Naptha, Crude w/Resin:

600 gal/day

~400 gal/day (Equivalent: 1 tank car every 10 days)

Picoline, Alpha:

3,000 gal/day

~2,000 gal/day (Equivalent: 1 tank car every 4 days)

Picoline, Beta & Gamma:

3,500 gal/day

~2,200 gal/day (Equivalent: 1 tank car every 4 days)

Phenols:

~1,800 gal/day

~1,200 gal/day (Equivalent: 1 tank car every 6 days)

Ortho-Cresols:

~700 gal/day

~475 gasl/day (Equivalent: 1 tank car every 2 weeks)

Meta-Para-Cresol:

1,700 gal/day

~1,200 gal/day (Equivalent: 1 tank car every 6 days)

Xylenol (Cresylic Acid):

1,250 gal/day

~800 gal/day (Equivalent: 1 tank car every 10 days)



Outbound Total (1960): 2 Box Cars and 13-14 Tank Cars (8k) per Day

~80 Hoppers of Coke per Day



ALL of this latter group are coal distillates, and so, are also
hydrocarbon-based "oils" (whether petroleum-derived or from coal) as you are
discussing them. All of them, according to various documents, were also
transported in 103 tanks, or so I have been told.



Nothing in that time period produced by integrated steel facilities (like
CIS) required transport in a pressurized vessel, as far as any of my research
has been able to uncover. The use of pressure tanks (ICC 112s) to haul
anhydrous ammonia was well into the future.



BTW,

Ammonium Sulfate:

~120 tons/day (Equivalent: 3 - 40-ton box cars/day)

86 tons/day (Equivalent: 2 - 40-ton box cars/day)

Shipped to Trade (Agricultural Supply) via Railroads



Was a very commonly produced (but dry crystalline powder) by-product of that
process, which was shipped in bags to agricultural areas all over the
country.



Oh, and wastewater, which is now treated on-site, was then just dumped into
any neighboring water body.

So, this could narrow down the list of culprits,



Elden Gatwood

Of peripheral interest in this discussion was the observed fact that in two month 2006 test of couplers holding together a fully operating 131 car train of freight cars of mixed ancestry pulled by a single steam locomotive, the only failures that I experienced were 1) The cast-in post of a #4 coupler box was fractured and pulled right out of the box, and 2) several McHenry couplers failed when the "stops" limiting knuckle range-of-movement failed. A large majority of couplers on the train, including the car tagging the locomotive tender itself were plastic Accumate Proto semi scale couplers. The remainder were almost all Kadee #5s, with a few #78s. Not a single one of them failed in any way, or even came close.

Denny

Indianapolis still has a coke gas production facility. Both the NKP and Monon had specialty cars assigned to carry the coke, primarily to steel mills. It now goes by truck.

Bill Darnaby

Usually gassification of coal.  Even small cities had these.  Brainerd Minnesota had one dating back to the early 1900's.  This gas is different from natural gas (which is usually methane and ethane).  Coal gas was normally hydrogen and carbon monoxide, but in some cases it could be converted to methane.
 
Some areas began using natural gas for space heating as early as the mid 1920's.  Much of Texas was converted during that time period.  Basically they reclaimed the natural gas that was a part of crude oil production.  Earlier it was burned at the production site. Still done in some areas of the world.
 
A similar process is now being considered as the best way to use coal for power generation.
 
Cyril Durrenberger

That's a large gallonage for a 50-ton car, so I'd suspect the lading
was lighter than water; but liquid tar, naphtha, benzene, and xylene
are all flammable liquids.

Al Brown, Melbourne, Fla.



--- In STMFC@..., "allen rueter" <allen_282@...> wrote:

From my summers in the steel mill, I don't remember any steel
production liquid byproducts, just slag, but coke production had a

lot

of byproducts.

Maybe and educated guess can be made, loads weight/12,650 gals, we
could make a guess at the density. Then compare that to
tar/naptha/benzene/xylene/... Some coke plants had a flushing
liquor, but most of that was recycled.

Allen Rueter

--- In STMFC@..., Richard Hendrickson <rhendrickson@>
wrote:

On Feb 26, 2009, at 4:26 AM, Ned Carey wrote:

what is the odd device on the end of this tank car?
http://tbn0.google.com/hosted/images/c?q=eb8dfb80ba8b6c72_large

Tim O'Connor

As Frank Fertitta observed, it's some sort of unusually large
cleanout cover with some sort of small crane arrangement to

support

it when unbolted from the tank end. What Carnegie-Illinois

Steel

might have been carrying in the cars that required a cleanout

hole

that large I can't imagine, but it's big enough to admit a

workman.

Frank's wrong in his speculation that the car was a high

pressure

tank car of some sort, however, as it was listed in the ORERs as

AAR

class TM, not TP. CISX 2774 was one of ten cars numbered 2772-

2781

which were of 12,650 gal. capacity, unusually large for that day
(Note that the tank is visibly bigger than that on the 10,000

gal.

GATX car to the left). These ten cars were used to carry a non-
regulatory commodity, as is evident both from the stenciling on

the

tank and the absence of safety valves - they had only frangible

disk

vents. I'd be interested to learn from someone familiar with

the

process of producing steel (Tony?) what that commodity might

have

been. At any rate, They were AC&F Type 21s built in early the

1920s,

and the tank cleanouts were probably added later. The dome

platforms

were homemade and were certainly added later.

Ned then observes:

It confirms what most on this list already know

a.. There was quite a variety of tank cars in size shape a

detail.

b.. Most tank cars were plain black
c.. Three compartment cars are smaller, common models like

athearn

are way to large. Note the three compartment car in the upper

right

of the photo. It is noticeably smaller that nearby cars. I

don't

recall seeing a multi compartment car next to other tank cars

and

the size difference is obvious by comparison. (perhaps also a
converted car as the end domes are smaller than the middle

dome.)

All true. The three compartment car appears to have been a 6,000

gal

single compartment car converted to three compartments. Such
conversions were fairly common (more often, though, on 8,000

gal.

cars), especially on GATX cars. 6 K gal. three compartment cars

are

among the more obvious car types that need to be modeled in HO

scale

(Micro-Trains has recent produced one in N scale). And Ned is,

of

course, right that the old Athearn/AHM models are so grotesquely
oversize that they can't even be used as reasonable stand-ins for

any

prototype cars.

What is the age of the photo?

Ca. 1942. Thee are a couple of GATX cars in the photo with

features

(rod tank tie-downs instead of straps, full-circle dome

handrails,

that weren't adopted earlier than late 1941), and all of the

CISX

tank cars were gone from the ORERs by mid-1943.

a.. I see no radial course cars
b.. I see many cars that appear welded with no obvious rivet

lines

There's one radial-course car way off in the distance, but

certainly

they're largely absent from this photo. On the other hand, none

of

the cars that are close enough for details to be made out appear

to

be welded (and I've done some fiddling in Photoshop to bring up

the

details as much as possible).

Interesting details
a.. The platforms on the full platform cars seem heavy. Maybe

the

platforms onsome of the plastic models aren't so crude after

all.

b.. My perception (Which perhaps comes from the model world)

is

that full platform cars were much more common on insulated

cars.

Yet I see a high percentage on non insulated cars in this photo.

Well, as noted earlier, the platforms on the cars close to the

camera

were homemade, and very crude, additions. Dome platforms

supplied by

the tank car builders were much more delicate.

c.. Seeing a person in close proximity to the manway, I am
surprised how small the manways were. It must have been a

squeeze

to get into a car.

Yup. Fat guys would have had difficulty getting in and - worse-
getting out.

d.. On the first track to the left, take note of the second

car

that has a dome showing. It has a circular grab all the way

around

the dome. I haven't noticed this before and yet it is on at

least a

few cars in the photo.

Standard GATC practice starting ca. 1941 but not generally

adopted by

AC&F, the only other significant tank car mfr. by that date.

Most of

the non-CISX cars I can identify in the photo are GATC built and
probably GATC owned. It appears that CISX had some sort of

leasing/

maintenance arrangement with GATC, because in the 1930s they

leased

cars from Pennsylvania-Conley, a wholly owned GATC subsidiary,

and

that would account for the preponderance of GATC cars in the

photo.

e.. The car to the upper right of the diesel cab has lateral
running boards around the dome. I have seen this before and
probably needs to be modeled more frequently. I can't think of

a

single model available that has this. Would this have been an
option tank car builders offered for standard designs or would

this

have been a trademark of a particular builder or tank car owner?

Tank car builder's may have provided those as an option, though

I

can't recall seeing a builder's photo that shows them. However,
owners often added them on cars in assigned service where

elevated

loading and/or unloading facilities weren't available. At any

rate,

adding them on a model is very simple, if you're modeling a

prototype

that had them.

f.. Perhaps most interesting of all is again the second car

(with a

dome showing, 3rd car if you include the partial car in front)

in

the left most row ahs an odd arrangement of rivet lines. Could

this

be a 5 course car?

Yes, an arrangement unique, AFAIK, to GATC cars built in the

early

war years, perhaps because larger pieces of steel weren't

available.

There was a single bottom sheet, two side sheets, and two top

sheets

with a rivet seam down the center as on three horizontal course

cars.

Some other observations, for what they're worth.

The car whose tank end shows at the bottom of the photo was

either a

Standard Tank Car Co. or Pennsylvania Tank Car Co. product, as
evidenced by the tank band location (PTC tanks were made by STC;

PTC,

whose plant was next door to STC's, made only their own

underframes

and smaller components like ladders and dome walkways). The next

car

in the string at the left of the photo was GATX 18285, a 10K gal.

car

built in 1926-'27.

All in all, as Ned says, a very interesting photo, though it

would be

a mistake to over-generalize from it about tank cars as a whole.

Richard Hendrickson



[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

The flange is a "blind" used to blank off a flanged nozzle.  There once have been a "u-tube' tank heater in that nozzle.  However, there are no connections for steam supply or condensate drainage; that absence precludes it from being an active heater.
 
Tank heaters are quite common in industry and HVAC applications, pressure vessel manufacturers weld them into the side or end of a storage tank.
John F. Cizmar

Dave Nelson wrote:

Am looking for more information of the cars of the Pure Carbonic company.
Here's an image of one such car:

<<http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.northeast.railfan.net/im <http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.northeast.railfan.net/im>
ages/dicx208.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.northeast.railfan.net/rolling11.html&u <http://www.northeast.railfan.net/rolling11.html&u>
sg=__TXY0x8g4zcrEXJRNps8E5WqMhi8=&h=576&w=718&sz=52&hl=en&start=1&um=1&tbnid
=COdtszlR7zSyMM:&tbnh=112&tbnw=140&prev=/images%3Fq%3Ddicx%2Bcars%26um%3D1%2
6hl%3Den%26rlz%3D1T4GGLG_enUS309US309%26sa%3DN>>

The pre-1950 cars all seem to be 13'6" (like in the image) or 13' 4" to the
top of the running boards.

Were these cars entirely "custom" (on the outside) or might I find something
similar enough for anything in the HO scale market to use or kitbash?
Opinions?

Any pointers to where I might find other car images would also be most
welcome.

TIA.

Dave Nelson

Dave,

Northeast Rails has this: http://www.northeast.railfan.net/images/dicx208.jpg.

HTH

Bert

Posted by: "cj riley" cjriley42@... cjriley42
Thu Feb 26, 2009 9:33 pm (PST)
--- On Thu, 2/26/09, ed_mines <ed_mines@...> wrote:
Any idea where the coke was made?
In the days before cross country pipelines, many areas were served by "coal gas" companies, with those huge floating storage tanks. Was their gas the result of coke production? Something I have always wondered about.CJ Riley
In the days before cross country gas pipelines, many areas were served by "coal gas companies
".

Yes, Coke was a byproduct of manufactured gas.

Howard Garner

I usually buy my drill bits from Micro-Mark, who advertise them as "high
speed steel."

Are these good to use in the MiniMate? Any other suggestions for drill bits?
Many thanks.
Jim Brewer



All drill bits are relatively brittle, Jim. It's a function of the hardening
process.

From my experience high speed steel bits are more malleable (less brittle)

than carbon steel and again IMHO hold their sharpness better.



They are also far less brittle than carbide bits. Haven't used carbide for
long enough

to know how long they stay sharp for.



For your application, I'd use HSS (high speed steel) bits.

Cheers

Dave