Oil refineries as well as chemical plants have all kinds of piping. They are easily the coolest thing to have a model of but I have no idea how to make it look like the real thing because of all that piping. How do you determine how many lines run from one place to another? …Are there some simple concepts a person can use to make their compressed version look right? Unfortunately I don’t think there’s an easy way to do this. Refineries are very complicated animals, and even the best model will only model a fraction of the piping involved (unless we’re talking about an engineering design model which is another animal). Some suggestions would be to research (through Google or at your local library) various chemical/refinery processes, and hope to see some schematic diagrams which might help as a base in understanding what goes where. Or photos/books on refineries showing photos of units or individual components. Trust me, no one else will really know where all those pipes need to go either. And unless you have more space than I think you do, you're only going to be able to simulate a small part of any refinery. It's kind of like trying to model a scale version of a real railroad. What you want is to suggest the refinery, include the tankage (incoming raw material, outgoing product), and get yourself a tank car loading facility set up. I'm assuming that there must be tanks for different things, such as incoming raw materials and outgoing processed goods. Are there any waste products that need to be held in tanks from these places? Generally speaking there isn’t too much ‘waste’ product from a refinery. Everything gets turned into something. The best stuff comes off as some aromatics, then gasoline, then diesels, then lube oils, and what’s left at the end of the refining process (the “heavy ends”) gets turned into refinery coke or road tar or Bunker C fuel oil. Chemicals used in processing usually either get processed/neutralized and then our the drain, or separated/treated/reused. Given the high cost and liability of transporting/disposing of waste products, refineries try to avoid this type of operation at all cost. Years ago some petrochemical plants just dumped some of the stuff, which gave us “Love Canal” and friends. What kind of buildings do you find at these places? Employee break/lunch room. Do they have changing rooms for their workers? Offices? etc. A real refinery has a host of buildings, starting with administration buildings, maintenance buildings, training buildings, warehouse/stores, fire station, and probably an employee cafeteria. Individual units used to have a control room that would normally include the actual control area (remote reading gauges, pressure / flow / temperature indicators, equipment control devices), and an area for that unit’s operators needs (rest rooms / lockers / showers / break room). These days, in light of safety regs, you’re more likely to find actual control rooms in concrete bunker-like buildings, and operator areas more remote from the actual unit. There is a huge place just north of Denver but they have never taken too kindly to people taking pictures of their facility. Everyone I know who has tried has gotten shooed away by security even when on public roadways. All part of the security / liability phobia. You can try snapping some photos with a camera with a good lens, or shoot video while passing. Or look for refinery websites on the web which will only show a few very selective shots of refineries, and usually at a distance. And all that is just scratching the surface. Regards
Ed: Thanks for that run down. So a person could do an abstraction like my picture and no one short of someone in the industry would know?
Thanks for that run down. So a person could do an abstraction like my picture and no one short of someone in the industry would know? Let's see, how should I phrase this? I think the answer is "precisely". Do a decent job of painting and weathering, try to give yourself some open space around it (no one builds right next door if they can avoid it), and no one will be the wiser. Good luck.
I meant the refinery to cover up glue and paint on the base. I will try and paint aged concrete on the base. Thanks for all the info. Here is the latest progress. Thanks, Loco1999
I've seen flames coming from those chimneys lots of times. Short of real flame, how about using the Pirates of the Carribean trick? Put a red light inside the chimney, glue on some very light fire shaped pieces of film to the top, and mount a box fan under the layout that forces air up through? Tony Burzio San Diego, CA
Tony: I've seen flames coming from those chimneys lots of times. What you're describing is a flare, or flare stack. Virtually all refineries or petrochemical plants have them. Mostly used as part of the overpressure protection system for the equipment. If pressure in any part of the system gets too great, a safety valve will open and release gas (similar to the safety valves on a steam engine). Rather than vent to atmosphere at the valve, this normally goes into a collection system and is piped to the flare stack where it is burned off. Flare stacks are usually off by themselves, away from the process units, and are thinner and taller than furnace stacks. These days you'll normally find a muffler section at the top. You shouldn't see flames coming from a furnace stack/chimney. If you do you'd better be running in the other direction because it's not normal. Having written all that, I wonder if I'm starting to sound like a rivet counter???? If I do I apologize, I'm just trying to be helpful. Just happy to find a thread that I can participate in. Regards
Ed, you sound like me when I talk about signal levels and other sundry meaningless work related things. Everyone else probably has the same thing about work related things. The more I talk to people who are retired the more I realize that stuff just doesn't leave your brain ever. Tony B, Along the same lines as the flame simulators. There is a N track group that has a steel mill that they fill with water and dry ice for that realistic steal mill effect.
It seems to me that small plannts are usually fairly well-maintained. In travels across New England before 1990, they were usually white or "aluminum", and well maintained.
Flare may not be normal practice today, but when I was travelling across the country with my parents by car in the late 1950's, we saw lots of those flares in Oklahoma, Texas and California. You had to be pretty close to see a flame in the day, but across the flat lands you could see them plainly at night, and you could see them from a distance. 50 years ago, wasn't the gas "in the way" or a by-product that did not have a viable commercial market? Weren't there originally all sorts of refinement by-products? Wasn't the thick, stinky "Bunker C" oil used by early diesels one of those, until a petroleum-based plastics industry provided commercial demand and pushed the price of that carbon-based molasses out of reach for RR diesel fuel? Rather than poo-poo the rivet counter data on refineries, I think we need more information in order to make the facilities we model appropriate for our era and locale. My new layout is set in New England in the late 1950's. Our power plants and chemical facilities out here in the Sonoran Desert are all "open air" frameworks with all the small tanks and pipes and pumps and valves in plain view. I suspect that might not work too well in New England in January. I could be wrong about all of that, but if so, I'm willing to learn the truth. If Ed or anyone else knows this stuff well enough to break it down for us and point us to examples of how it is (and was) done, I think that would be a priceless service to our hobby. I can build a wharf, a lighthouse, a creamery and an icehouse, and have them all appropriate for their appointed purpose for my chosen locale and era. Ships are not as easy, but the appropriate work boats are available in N Scale in kit form, as are the assorted bridges I need. I wouldn't have a clue where to begin to build a chemical plant or a refinery, though.
Anyone have a picture of a flare stack? Since the refinery says Standard Oil, it should be in the 50's. That should put it into the time when there were more flares, right? Long Beach seems to have lots of flare stacks! I think an exploding refinery would be the hit of the show, but then again you may have to do a bit of assembly between explosions! Tony Burzio San Diego, CA
LongTrain Con - Cor makes a Natural Gas storage facility that looked anchient when I first saw it south of Boston. It was the type that lowered and raised according to how much was stored. I have one you are welcome to if they are no longer available. Almost dead center in this pic: http://www.portjervisnewyork.org/files/Underpass.jpg Here is the page: http://www.portjervisnewyork.org/PortJervisNewYork25.html Careful, it plays music when accessed
Tony: Anyone have a picture of a flare stack? Not handy. Plus, depending on the service, the volume of flared gas, the number of process units feeding the flare, the size and arrangement of the flare can vary quite a bit. The flare can be guyed, in a derrick structure (think oil well derrick), or free standing (not common). I would think that for general model railroad purposes on the small refinery models we have, you'd be best to go with a guyed stack, maybe 150' scale high. We'll assume a 24'diameter flare line and riser, so you'd be fine selecting a piece of 3/16"dia plastic tubing (close enough to 24"diameter?) long enough to represent the height that looks good to you (should be at least as high as tallest refinery tower you have). Near the top we need a muffler/steam injection section. This ought to be maybe 4' diameter, maybe 12-15' long, sort of shaped like a pill capsule with the top end squared off. Kind of like if you took a time release capsule and opened it up. We'll assume 8 guy lines (waxed thread?) to support the flare riser. Two sets of 4, at 90, 180, 270, and 360 degrees. One set connected just under the silencer. One set connected about mid way up the flare riser. Each pair of guys come together at the ground (so we have 4 anchor points). The line from the refinery unit to the flare itself will be the same 3/16" tubing, run on a level out from the piperack section of the unit, normally supported between the unit and the flare on structural steel T-Post supports spaced maybe 20-25' apart. Run this straight into the vertical flare line. We'll assume there is a pipe elbow there, with the vertical portion below just a dead-leg support for the upper section. There would probably be more, including a liquid knock-out drum at the flare, steam injecton lines, etc, but I think that may be overkill. We're just trying to give the impression of the flare. I really need to learn how to do something in Paint to help illustrate this, I think I'm confusing the issue. Carl, help me out on this one. Later,
Heck Ed, That is the beauty of Trainboard, that you can come here and find people that can share their specialized knowledge of railroads and related industries with everyone that is interested! Nelson
Okay, don't laugh. Here are a couple of cruse attempts at sketching up something in Paint to help illustrate all that gobbledy-gook I posted earlier. The first sketch is a typical plot plan, showing the relationship of the flare to the process unit, inclusing the routing of the flare line (pipe) from the unit to the flare. The second is a crude elevation showing the flare stack (riser) itself, the flare line arriving (on T-post supports), and the guy lines. Whew, that was an experience in itself. Hope this helps explain a little about what I was talking about. This is just an example, by no means the best or only way to do it. Regards,
wlal21, Yes it was at the Arlington GATS in February. Arlington is not a good memory. My pickup was broken into on Friday night and my utility trailer was stolen from me on Saturday night. BUMMER ! Ed - I think you have done a good job of descrbing one type of flair.
