Union Carbide Niagara Falls plant - Weird boxcar (LOX)

[nydepot]

Any idea what you would do with a tank inside a boxcar? Keep it secret?

http://images.google.com/hosted/life/l? ... E%26sa%3DG

Charles

[3rdrail]

With the attack on Pearl Harbor six months away and much of the world involved in conflict, I'm sure that the car had militiary applications. It would be interesting through you decipherers out there who can read freightese to explain to we who don't speak the language what, if anything, those reporting marks say. Whatever was inside, it needed constant refrigeration or circulation, judging by the door sign. Another thing that I noticed is that car is only 8 months old ! Doesn't look it, does it ? (I can't help but draw an analogy to a modelers "weathering job".) We didn't win the war just because of our good looks !

[CarterB]

LAPX is a GATX reporting mark for Linde Air Products, Lessee

"....there were 283 "XT" type cars, nos. 101-499, listed under General American. (The "XT" designation stood for a tank inside a box car, used to carry liquified gases.) This green and white scheme was adopted later in the '50's.



Hendrickson said Linde had a sizable fleet of box tank cars - box cars with liquid oxygen tanks inside - and this is one of them. They leased cars both from General American and AC&F/Shippers Car Line. The LAPX cars like this one were owned and operated by General American, while the cars leased from Shippers Car Line carried SERX reporting marks. Though these cars were of AAR standard design (1932 specs with 9 ft. 4 in. IH in the case of the LAPX cars, 1937 specs. with 10 ft. 0 ins. IH in the case of the SERX cars), they were "beefed up" to 70 tons nominal capacity (note the full length side sill reinforcements on LAPX 273) because the tanks they carried were very heavy, especially when loaded.
Also, Linde's box cars had small doors in the lower sections of the ends to provide access to internal valves and piping, as well as small round filler plugs in the roof near the center of the car.

http://railroad.union.rpi.edu/article.php?article=1527

[3rdrail]

If that car carries liquid oxygen, it appears as if the car is empty at the time of this shot. Liquid oxygen is a cryogenic and as such, is extremely cold. I would expect to see traces of vapor in this clear shot if the tank was holding liquid oxygen. Also, the man tending to it is not dressed protectively with insulated clothing, as would be necessary in handling liquid oxygen. I'm not sure that liquid oxygen had a common use at this time- I wonder what the application was ?

Here's another Union Carbide guy loading butadiene sixteen years later. Butadiene is a chemical used in the making of ABS plastic products. Once again, no protective wear ! (I hope that they kept the same tankers for chemical transport and didn't mix them up with the 7-Up runs !)
http://images.google.com/hosted/life/l? ... %26hl%3Den

[CarterB]

"As one of America's first oxygen-producing concerns and, after 1917, part of one of the country's largest chemical companies, Linde soon became the world's largest producer of industrial gases"

Source: http://www.answers.com/topic/union-carbide-corporation

" Linde, the son of a Lutheran minister, was educated in science and engineering at the Federal Polytechnic in Zurich, Switzerland. After working for locomotive manufacturers in Berlin and Munich, he became a faculty member at the Polytechnic in Munich. His research there on heat theory, from 1873 to 1877, led to his invention of the first reliable and efficient compressed-ammonia refrigerator. The company he established to promote this invention was an international success: refrigeration rapidly displaced ice in food handling and was introduced into many industrial processes.

After a decade Linde withdrew from managerial activities to refocus on research, and in 1895 he succeeded in liquefying air by first compressing it and then letting it expand rapidly, thereby cooling it. He then obtained oxygen and nitrogen from the liquid air by slow warming. In the early days of oxygen production the biggest use by far for the gas was the oxyacetylene torch, invented in France in 1904, which revolutionized metal cutting and welding in the construction of ships, skyscrapers, and other iron and steel structures.

One company formed to use Linde’s later patents was the Linde Air Products Company, founded in Cleveland in 1907. In 1917 Linde Air Products joined with four other companies that produced acetylene, among other products, to form Union Carbide and Carbon Corporation."

Source: http://www.chemheritage.org/classroom/c ... linde.html

World Chronology: 1901
"Refrigeration pioneer Carl von Linde, now 59, pioneers oxygen furnaces for steelmaking with a new method for separating pure liquid oxygen from liquid air, but the steel industry will be slow to perfect and adopt the new process"

[3rdrail]

Thanks Carter ! There it is right there- for the production of oxygen for acetylene torches, to build the ships, tanks, and artillery.

[BR&P]

it appears as if the car is empty at the time of this shot

The lighting is not at the best angle, but to me the truck springs appear compressed, suggesting a load.

[RichM]

Biggest use of bulk oxygen was and still is steel manufacture.

What you have shows the evolution of this equipment, not unlike other rolling stock... think of any photos you've seen about mid-19th century vertical wooden tanks on flat cars.

Better insulation and better strength steels allowed larger cryogenic tanks, to a point where 12-15,000 gallon cryogenic tanks were used for liquid gases from the late '50's onward. It was really the increasing number of air separation plants that reduced the railcar need to ship oxygen and nitrogen by rail, although from time to time the industrial gas producers attempt to go back to rail shipments of liquid argon, usually to everyone's dissatisfaction...

Typically it's hard to tell empty or full as the density of liquid oxygen and nitrogen is close to water, but the actual liquid volume (and weight) carried compared to the the tank's tare weight is relatively small.

[scharnhorst]

neat looking car.

[deezlfan]

If that car carries liquid oxygen, it appears as if the car is empty at the time of this shot. Liquid oxygen is a cryogenic and as such, is extremely cold. I would expect to see traces of vapor in this clear shot if the tank was holding liquid oxygen.

Having worked for Linde Homecare filling and transporting liquid oxygen, I can add this. Just after filling, the interior of the tanks are so cold that the oxygen won't even develop pressure. After a period of warming, pressure does develop but is regulated by maintaining pressure on the gasious O2 in the top of the tank. There is no release of visable vapor except when the tank is being filled and the vent is open to make way for the liqud to flow. There will be a small audible venting sound after the pressure in the tank 'comes up against the regulator'. Occationally you will see a small bit of vapor coming from the vents when LOX is transported by tractor trailer. This is almost always because the tank in newly filled and the truck is moving in such a way as to splash a small amount of liquid up into the vent, where it turns to a gas in the warm pipe and is quickly released.

Also, the man tending to it is not dressed protectively with insulated clothing, as would be necessary in handling liquid oxygen. I'm not sure that liquid oxygen had a common use at this time- I wonder what the application was ?

The tanks are double or triple insulated and show no frost on the outside. Even the piping will not except during filling/dispensing . You can safely touch just about all the exterior tank surface with no problems. The normal protection during filling/dispensing is heavy gloves, long sleeves, a face shield and all the common sense you can muster. Once the filling is done and the valves are shut and capped, the need for safety equipment is over. Horizonal tanks usually have the valves and regulators mounted on the END of the tank on the centerline. The vent pipe would run up through the roof and might have an elbow or rain cap on top. There is a possibility that the ladder in that boxcar leads to the secondary safety valves and safety [blow-off] discs.

[Plate F]

Wow that is really neat! It appears there is a cushion of insulation around the actual tank. What do you think? Wouldn't surprise me, with what it would be filled with.

[scharnhorst]

Makes me wonder did they build the box around the tank at the factory? or was the tank an after thought that was put in the car later by way of cutting the roof off the boxcar putt the tank in and weld the top back on? The tank looks vary clean and new but the boxcar its self looks a little weathered.

[BR&P]

That's a good question. The car shows built in 10-1940 and the photo was supposedly taken in 1941. The car looks like more than a year old, looks like a crease in the left side and the paint appears somewhat mottled. Although in those days paint did not stand up as long as it does now.

One indication the tank was added later is the weight stencils - it appears the load limit and light weight were changed, which would be the case if it started out as a regular boxcar and the tank was then installed at a later time.

[DogBert]

If you click that photo of the car it brings up a bigger photo with the springs more visible. I'm no expert but it looks like a load.