Diesel servicing fueling pumps

I'm looking fabricate some fuel pumps to fit into my loco servicing tracks. It's the type that would have been installed for first generation diesels, rather than the more modern crane type (currently done by AMB I think).

Arrangements seemed to have varied greatly, but try as I might I cannot get close up, clear pictures of what these things looked like, or what diesel fueling facilities looked generally like in the late 50's / early 60's. If anyone has any knowledge, a picture, can describe them, or knows of a manufacturer in N scale that would be great.

Thanks

 

First off try this link.
http://www.google.com/search?q=Dies...ct=mode&cd=2&ved=0CDoQ_AUoAQ&biw=1024&bih=707

Going blind here because I don't know if you are doing a mainline or branchline or how much space you have to deal with. Also since you state 1st generation is steam still around? A lot of early facilities just added onto existing steam facilities using the same sandhouse and tower with added hoses for diesel and then adding a fuel column and water hoses.

Simpliest to model would be using an old covered hopper for sand or even an old tank car converted for the same purpose that supplied the sand column. Fuel could also be a company service tankcar connected by hoses to the fuel column.

Three kits come to mind. Walthers Service Track Structures. Old style first generation type kit. Bachmann Plus kit that has two multi track service racks. And last the Stewart service column kit which is ideal for a small space.

 

Most shops I've worked at had the pumps enclosed in a pump house. I've never seen the pumps laying outside in the weather. The pump house was a little metal or wooden shack with a fuel inlet and an outlet to the nozzles and a light to let you know the pump was running. Some places had the hoses on the ground and some had cranes. The cranes have been around for ages, they are NOT a new innovation . If you ever dragged fuel hoses around through the snow you would certainly appreciate the cranes.

Randy
Randy

 

Thanks guys, very helpful both. I guess I meant the fuel column, rather than the pump. It's a small two track facility added in to existing steam facilities.

 

As late as about four years ago NS units working the Monongahela Valley would be refueled by tanker trucks in Clairton, PA. As near as I could tell it was a gravity feed system - no pumps required

 

Randy Stahl made me chuckle on that one.

I can relate a little research here... if you go back to one of the very first diesel fueling facilities ever (Winslow, AZ, WWII with FT's) it was a rather crude mess of overhead piping up on metal poles, with frequent drop-down hoses. There were probably pumps somewhere, but the nest of overhead piping was interesting. It looked to me like they just lengthened the steam locomotive fuel racks and added more drops. More evolutionary than revolutionary. The steam filler lines had to be as high as the tender. Apparently ATSF's oil burners used something similar.

Stewart made a cast metal set of fuel and water cranes, and a smallish sand tower, that are probably appropriate to at least the early 60's. They are older than the AMI sets.

But I just found out that the AMI crane style dates back to the 70's, surprised me, and when I redid my cranes I used those.

http://www.trainboard.com/grapevine/showthread.php?132703-ATSF-fueling-facilities-design-Winslow

Truck filling now is a lot more popular, it means that you don't have to maintain on-site tanks, with all the environmental problems, spillage, containment, filtering, etc.

I never thought much about it, but the overhead piping makes a lot of sense, and if it's where you can see it, you can fix it. Get a break or leak in an underground line, and you've got a big problem, particularly today.

 

Buying fuel delivered by truck is expensive !! Maintaining a fuel storage area is expensive too with all the enviromental crap you have to do to avoid fines and such. The initial capitol outlay is high but in the end you can buy fuel at a much lower cost.

Another option is buying the fuel in bulk and using the fuel directly from a tank car. We do that currently and it works out pretty well . The actual fuel station is nothing more than a shelter that coveres the tank car and about 4 locomotives on two tracks. There is a small cover built over the pumps.

There is one hose that goes from the tank car bottom to the pump. From the pump it goes overhead and crosses over the tracks to the fuel meters and shut off valves. Each time a locomotive is fueled a printed ticket comes out of the meter.
The delivery hoses are attached to the meter and are layed on the ground.
We did make some hangers to hang the Snyder fuel nozzles on , they are planted in the concrete and are about testicle height.
Nothing in the fuel delivery system is underground , a fuel leak is undetectable that way.
One down side to tank cars is that throughout the year , moisture collects in the tankcar. In the winter time the bottom of the tank car freezes solid. Then you need to hammer a bar or something up into the car to let the fuel out. Ever bathe in #2 diesel? The cars we use are 27,500 gal.

Randy

 

We got called into a situation just this month (railroad name not to be disclosed) when an underground pipeline between the unload rack and the storage tank ruptured underground, after being fine for 40 years. One of the buried pipe couplings fractured, leaking diesel, and now there is a big-time remediation and cleanup underway. If ever I wondered why railroads put all the fuel piping overhead instead of underground, I know now. This site had been updated before with containment, pads, and separators, but the weak spot - the underground pipes - got them.

Randy, I'm assuming that the height description is based upon personal painful experience.

Your typical first-generation fuel areas pretty much turned into disaster areas due to spillage and contamination. One of the things I do is to research where they were - studying old topo maps, aerial photos, valuation maps, books. One of the classic cases of what i mean was down in Elkins, WV, on the WM. The entire yard area across from the depot had to be excavated and incinerated back in the 90's due to fuel contamination. It's all cleaned up now, but it was hellishly expensive. Shortline railroads have learned to find out where the old fueling sites were and NOT acquire them if at all possible.

 

@randgust - on the Winslow fuel rack thread - where did you get the orange pump heads at the end of the pipe stream next to the fuel hoses? I need something similar for a pipe rack in my refinery complex.

Thanks!

 

Those are right-out-of-the-box AIM fueling cranes. Very nice, very fragile.

 

Don't know if this will help. Refueling dated 1957

 

I am still searching for any photos or blueprints.


I like to build a modern BNSF fueling station.

 

In Tucson at the old SP Yard they had small Tanker Trucks drive right up to the Locomotives. It was neat to see; I would be that they had some larger Tankers driving around that Yard that I didn't see.

 

Back in the mid 80's when I was working for Hino Trucks we had a customer in Greenville, SC, whose sole job was fueling Amtrak. 30,000 GVW truck, 3000 gallon tank. Bob.

 

I know he did stay busy with only a 3,000 tank. That was probably the size of the Trucks I saw

 

So, how come your still called Randy?

 

Actually most of my co workers have other names for me...

 

It’s not so easy to find Photos.

I also tried to find something with Google Maps.
It didn’t work!

I think I have to find an BNSF engineer, he can take some shot’s when he is waiting to fill the massive tank!


I made a Photo in Kansas City but not closed enought.

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That’s not good enough for my new Mojave – Terminal