I'm a HAZMAT Technician instructor who teaches Railcar basics and Chlorine Tank Car response. We also have an LPG / Ammonia dome trainer. Excellent preso. Nothing wrong with your way of doing business- you thought through the process to keep it efficient and SAFE! Going to send your video around to our other instructors.
If I don't leave any other comment, I just want to say that this entire process, so far, has been extremely fascinating! Thank you for taking your time to make these videos.
You done this over and over, and found the Best and safe way to complete your business. I can tell you have years in this. It sad the young people don't understand this and rush to finish for ass time.
Agreed. Doesn’t matter what it is that you do, you should do it to the best of your ability and always take pride in what you do. If the job doesn’t pay enough, you still give it 110% for many reasons. You never know who’s watching and it teaches you valuable lessons. I see it all the time, people cry about not getting paid enough yet they refuse to put any effort in at all yet alone any extra effort. They do next to nothing and then wonder why they don’t get paid more. The ones that are worth money, don’t stay at low paying businesses very long.
You train just like my boss Juanita! I can be a little sarcastic but I know your thinking! Your a great teacher. We work as a mix cook. With 1000's if gallons of tomatoes. They don't blow up but we produce caustic acid and we use really hot steam. Ive seen guys get injured in the 9 years I've been there. Mostly the cocky ones.🎉 Thank you.
Been offloading 14 cars daily using natural gas to force LPG out of the liquid valve and into an unloading vessel where it gets pumped to the correct tanks. Gets to be exhausting under time constraints. But it’s honest work.
You used the crescent wrench incorrectly on those first two valves. The way you had it, the force of turn will attempt to move or loosen the movable jaw. By having the movable jaw on the leading direction of movement, there is not anywhere near as force on it versus it being in the trailing position.
I have been in the propane business my entire life however around me we don't have any rail car propane transports so this is my first time ever seeing the process. I would of thought the cars would of had emergency shut offs built in Iike a internal valve with an acme thread so you didn't have to thread in a pipe nipple every time Do they have some type of excess flow valve built into those valves on the car?? Do you own a propane company or a transport terminal? Great info and videos thanks for showing
Yes, these cars do have excess flow valves installed just below each valve. They are either 2" or 3", depending on the build requirements for each car. The pressure drop flow rates for these valves vary quite a bit, depending on size and spring tension. Just as in NFPA58, the internal excess flows of an ASME tank, are only for protecting the tank valve opening in the event the valve gets severely damaged or sheared off, and we have to install down stream excess flows to protect the piping. Same with these cars, the internal excess flows are there to contain product in case the valves were broken off. No, I do not own a company. Thanks for reaching out, nice to hear from another propane person.
All the safety classes that I have taken specifically refused the use of a cheater bar. If you need one, then you do not have the right tool. the cheater bar could slip off the wrench. best of luck and stay safe.
How are you able to unload from the top of the rail car? Are there pipes inside the tank that go to the bottom? Are you unloading a tank full of nitrogen or propane? Do you use a gas to force liquid back up and out? You explained the process to hook everything up very well, I’m just a bit confused on how it works. My guess is you are using nitrogen gas to pressurize the tank which in turn forces the nitrogen liquid up a pipe from the bottom of the tank that goes up to the valve on the top?
Your guess about nitrogen being used to PUSH the liquid out, is a good guess, but not an accurate one. At about 2:14 in the video I show a Marshall ESV, (Emergency Shutoff Valve) what I commonly call a "stinger". Nitrogen is used to Open & Close the internal parts of this stinger, nothing else. Nitrogen never leaves this stinger to enter the car. I use my compressors to both pull propane VAPOR from my storage tanks and then push that same VAPOR, under pressure, into the vapor space of the rail cars.Using the compressors like this, causes the pressure in my storage tanks to go down, and at the same time causes the pressure in the rail car(s) to go up. This dual action allows the propane LIQUID, to easily flow from the car(s) into the storage tanks.You are correct about pipes inside the car, they are called "Eduction Tubes". Each liquid valve on top of the car is connected to one. The vapor valve on top of the car is not connected to a pipe, it opens up to the upper section of the car in what is called the "Vapor Space", since none of these cars are filled 100% full of liquid. The top 14-24inches of the car is propane vapor, and the rest is propane liquid. The eduction tubes/pipes go almost completely to the bottom of the inside of the car, but are secured a few inches from the bottom. When Offloading the liquid from a car, I can remove 99.5% of all the liquid. The 0.5%, about 170 gallons, is left because the eduction tubes/pipes do not reach the absolute bottom of the car. When I switch the compressors over to Recovery, this 170 gallons of liquid will boil off, going from liquid to vapor, and get removed along with the rest of the vapor suspended in the car. If you made it this far, thank you for your patience. I can ramble on and on sometimes. I honestly hope this has helped you better understand how this works. Thank you for taking the time to watch and being willing to ask a question. If I failed to make anything clear, please follow up. Thank you
@@mypropaneinsights6074 Thank you so much for taking the time to explain! As I’m watching trains zoom across rail road crossings, they just look like big black tanks with a valve on the bottom and a lid up top. I have always assumed that everything must come out of the bottom. After watching your video I realized that there’s much more to these cars than meets the eye. I’m also guessing that since the eduction tubes sit a couple of inches above the bottom of the tank, it will prevent impurities such as rust from being fed into your system. Saving you from having to clean screens/ filters? I grew up on a farm and with that comes experience in basically all the trades. I’ve always had a need to understand how everything works. One thing that’s always intrigued me are trains. For me it’s mind boggling how much weight those things can move. And I can never seem to find enough content on RUclips about them! Again thank you for taking the time to respond, and thanks for taking the time to explain to all of us the inner and outer workings of what it is you do!
@@tomtendam6550 A little tank car trivia for you. When you see a tank car with only one (1) dome on top, it is a high pressure car like mine that both loads and unloads from the top. A tank car with two (2) domes on top is a low pressure car that loads from the top and unloads from the bottom. Take care!
No it doesn’t make a difference. Look it up, plenty of videos on it. If you use an adjustable wrench at all, you’ll figure this out pretty quickly that it makes no difference which way you orient the wrench. One cheap, junky garbage wrenches it may help but on good wrenches, it doesn’t matter.
Yes, a standard socket will work on an undamaged plug. The problem we run into is that the majority of these plugs are so chewed up by pipe wrenches that sockets cannot fit properly. Thanks.
~ I'm so glad that I came across your channel the other day. I've always had some sort of attraction(Not sexually 😳😬) to tanker cars and I always wanted to have my own distribution center, well at least since I became of age anyways. I do work for the railroad but in communications. We have a corn syrup unloading facility near where I live and I was recently informed that a fuel unloading facility similar to yours is being constructed very soon, near the other one. "...a smart application of force..." (Be smarter than the tools you're working with!) Does the car maker ever give you new replacement plugs in case they are stripped beyond use by a previous installer? If you were me, you would need some knee pads for kneeling down, ha, ha! Good to see someone who knows and respects basic physics. How many people do you employ and what State are you in? Sorry for the 20 questions but I'm a bit excited, lol.
It still amazes me the excitement trains bring to so many! To your first question, No, virtually all fittings inside the protective housing are restricted to repair shops and mobile repair units from shops. Second, day to day there are two of us, but once you add in those offsite, logistics, accounting, etc., that number grows quickly. Third, Indiana. Thanks for sharing.
I work with liquid ethylene (cryogenic, Highly flammable) at a chemical plant. All of our Railcar fittings are brass with brass nuts on our piping. (Brass to avoid sparks when hammering fittings together) why is it with LP you use steel fittings? You said they last longer, but couldn’t they create an ignition source? Not being a smart ass.
Yes steel could pose a problem. In my experience, as well as the propane field in general, our biggest threat/source of ignition comes from static electricity. Grounding the cars is our best preventative for that. The general characteristics, of propane ( its ranges of flammability for example) are such that non-sparking tools are not usually used or needed. I use ACME fittings instead of Kemper style fittings (to connect the hoses to the ESV's) to avoid the use of hammers. My SOP's specify the use of spanner wrenches only on the ACME nuts, whereas Kemper style nuts are almost always tightened using a brass or bronze hammer. Thank you for the comment.
How do you know when you have emptied the car of propane ? How do you prevent the nitrogen from being pushed into the propane liquid line once all the propane is out of the tanker ?
I use two ways to prove the car is empty of liquid. The first is by looking at the sight glasses in the liquid lines, when they go clear or mostly clear I open the Sample Line Valve. This valve is connected to a tube that goes almost to the bottom of the car. Open this valve and when only propane vapor comes out for at least 10 seconds, this proves that virtually all available liquid has left the car. Recheck the glasses, when they are completely clear the car is as empty of liquid as you can get it for now. The nitrogen is only used to open the stinger, the nitrogen and propane are never in contact, the entire valve would have catastrophically fail for the propane and nitrogen to mix. Hope this helps, thanks.
@@mypropaneinsights6074 you don't replace the space in the tank with nitrogen ? I thought you used the nitrogen to displace the propane and force it out of the tanker once it gets down to the bottom, like water pumped into oil to force oil out the top completely displacing the oil.
@@ocsrc I use propane vapor from my storage tanks. The compressors push the vapor into the car and this pushes out the liquid. When that is done I reverse the flow of the compressors and pull out as much of the vapor as possible. The nitrogen only goes to the safety valves.
@@ocsrc It doesn’t make any sense to use a different gas to displace the liquid propane. As he said, he uses propane vapor that is pumped in to displace the LP is the way to go. No cross contamination, no extra equipment, lesser cost over time as you can reuse what you already have on site.
Using the adjustable wrench in the manner that you did is improper. It spreads the jaw and will allow the wrench to slip causing rounded corners. The fixed jaw should always go on the opposite side of the force.
No. The orientation doesn’t matter. Anyone who’s used one for any period of time knows this. It’s already been tested and proved many times over, look it up. If you’re reefing on something that is tight enough to make an adjustable wrench slip, you’re using the wrong tool.
This ain't his first rodeo. One your first day, do you (a) figure it out yourself, (b) ask the guy who started yesterday, or (c) listen to the guy who's been doing this shit for 30 years? (I betting you're an "a" person.)
I use "T" sized, I think they are 304 cubic feet in volume, depending on what pressure they fill them to. I manifold three of them together but pull from only one at a time. I use commercial grade nitrogen. Nothing special, no high purity grades of any kind. The moisture content in commercial grade is very minute, almost trace level but not quite, and causes me no issues. Hope this helps, thanks.
We do not load rail cars here, only offload them. I have never loaded a car but I have spoken with a couple people involved with loading, and according to them it is a generally efficient process that takes about 1-1.5 hours.
You should watch his video on making a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. ... How to become unionized and over complicate every job. Before the union white knights rill in let's talk all the toppled cranes...
if you don't want to strip valves use a crescent wrench do not use a pipe wrench on a valve or you will strip the nut and the threads it needs to be hand tight then wrench tight. Never use a pipe wrench on nuts or valves you will strip them.
![Gunna - today i did good [Official Video]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/ulGLk8TaXcI/mqdefault.jpg)
I'm a HAZMAT Technician instructor who teaches Railcar basics and Chlorine Tank Car response. We also have an LPG / Ammonia dome trainer. Excellent preso. Nothing wrong with your way of doing business- you thought through the process to keep it efficient and SAFE! Going to send your video around to our other instructors.
Glad to hear that you found this useful. Thanks for letting me know.
If I don't leave any other comment, I just want to say that this entire process, so far, has been extremely fascinating! Thank you for taking your time to make these videos.
You are welcome, and thank you for letting me know.
You done this over and over, and found the Best and safe way to complete your business. I can tell you have years in this. It sad the young people don't understand this and rush to finish for ass time.
Thank you for the comment.
Agreed. Doesn’t matter what it is that you do, you should do it to the best of your ability and always take pride in what you do. If the job doesn’t pay enough, you still give it 110% for many reasons. You never know who’s watching and it teaches you valuable lessons. I see it all the time, people cry about not getting paid enough yet they refuse to put any effort in at all yet alone any extra effort. They do next to nothing and then wonder why they don’t get paid more. The ones that are worth money, don’t stay at low paying businesses very long.
I enjoyed watching you detailed explanation on your process to safely and efficiently connect this type of tankcar. Thanks for sharing
You're welcome. Hopefully more people will be able to upload their own videos and share what works well for them.
Just got hired in at lovees ethanol terminal, going to be doing the same job. And I'm definitely excited for the new journey in life. Thank you sir.
Congratulations!
You train just like my boss Juanita! I can be a little sarcastic but I know your thinking! Your a great teacher.
We work as a mix cook. With 1000's if gallons of tomatoes. They don't blow up but we produce caustic acid and we use really hot steam. Ive seen guys get injured in the 9 years I've been there. Mostly the cocky ones.🎉
Thank you.
Thank you for sharing about your work.
I wish everybody was as serious as you are about their job.
Thank you.
Great teacher, old school!!!
Thank you.
I LEARNED so much. Thank you! 👍
Glad to hear it was helpful.
Thank you for not saying learnt.
Thank you for sharing. I have no need for this, but it is very interesting. I always thought that the top was a big hole.
Glad you found it interesting.
Been offloading 14 cars daily using natural gas to force LPG out of the liquid valve and into an unloading vessel where it gets pumped to the correct tanks. Gets to be exhausting under time constraints. But it’s honest work.
That is a lot of cars to do each day, thanks for sharing.
Like your focus on Total Safety. Do you wear a gas detector when you work with non-odorized gas? Thanks
We never order in non-odorized product but if we did we would probably install a detection system. Thank you for the comment.
You used the crescent wrench incorrectly on those first two valves. The way you had it, the force of turn will attempt to move or loosen the movable jaw. By having the movable jaw on the leading direction of movement, there is not anywhere near as force on it versus it being in the trailing position.
Thank you for sharing that.
I have been in the propane business my entire life however around me we don't have any rail car propane transports so this is my first time ever seeing the process. I would of thought the cars would of had emergency shut offs built in Iike a internal valve with an acme thread so you didn't have to thread in a pipe nipple every time Do they have some type of excess flow valve built into those valves on the car?? Do you own a propane company or a transport terminal? Great info and videos thanks for showing
Yes, these cars do have excess flow valves installed just below each valve. They are either 2" or 3", depending on the build requirements for each car. The pressure drop flow rates for these valves vary quite a bit, depending on size and spring tension. Just as in NFPA58, the internal excess flows of an ASME tank, are only for protecting the tank valve opening in the event the valve gets severely damaged or sheared off, and we have to install down stream excess flows to protect the piping. Same with these cars, the internal excess flows are there to contain product in case the valves were broken off.
No, I do not own a company.
Thanks for reaching out, nice to hear from another propane person.
All the safety classes that I have taken specifically refused the use of a cheater bar. If you need one, then you do not have the right tool. the cheater bar could slip off the wrench. best of luck and stay safe.
Thank you for sharing.
How are you able to unload from the top of the rail car? Are there pipes inside the tank that go to the bottom? Are you unloading a tank full of nitrogen or propane? Do you use a gas to force liquid back up and out? You explained the process to hook everything up very well, I’m just a bit confused on how it works. My guess is you are using nitrogen gas to pressurize the tank which in turn forces the nitrogen liquid up a pipe from the bottom of the tank that goes up to the valve on the top?
Your guess about nitrogen being used to PUSH the liquid out, is a good guess, but not an accurate one. At about 2:14 in the video I show a Marshall ESV, (Emergency Shutoff Valve) what I commonly call a "stinger". Nitrogen is used to Open & Close the internal parts of this stinger, nothing else. Nitrogen never leaves this stinger to enter the car. I use my compressors to both pull propane VAPOR from my storage tanks and then push that same VAPOR, under pressure, into the vapor space of the rail cars.Using the compressors like this, causes the pressure in my storage tanks to go down, and at the same time causes the pressure in the rail car(s) to go up. This dual action allows the propane LIQUID, to easily flow from the car(s) into the storage tanks.You are correct about pipes inside the car, they are called "Eduction Tubes". Each liquid valve on top of the car is connected to one. The vapor valve on top of the car is not connected to a pipe, it opens up to the upper section of the car in what is called the "Vapor Space", since none of these cars are filled 100% full of liquid. The top 14-24inches of the car is propane vapor, and the rest is propane liquid. The eduction tubes/pipes go almost completely to the bottom of the inside of the car, but are secured a few inches from the bottom. When Offloading the liquid from a car, I can remove 99.5% of all the liquid. The 0.5%, about 170 gallons, is left because the eduction tubes/pipes do not reach the absolute bottom of the car. When I switch the compressors over to Recovery, this 170 gallons of liquid will boil off, going from liquid to vapor, and get removed along with the rest of the vapor suspended in the car.
If you made it this far, thank you for your patience. I can ramble on and on sometimes. I honestly hope this has helped you better understand how this works. Thank you for taking the time to watch and being willing to ask a question. If I failed to make anything clear, please follow up. Thank you
@@mypropaneinsights6074 Thank you so much for taking the time to explain! As I’m watching trains zoom across rail road crossings, they just look like big black tanks with a valve on the bottom and a lid up top. I have always assumed that everything must come out of the bottom. After watching your video I realized that there’s much more to these cars than meets the eye. I’m also guessing that since the eduction tubes sit a couple of inches above the bottom of the tank, it will prevent impurities such as rust from being fed into your system. Saving you from having to clean screens/ filters? I grew up on a farm and with that comes experience in basically all the trades. I’ve always had a need to understand how everything works. One thing that’s always intrigued me are trains. For me it’s mind boggling how much weight those things can move. And I can never seem to find enough content on RUclips about them! Again thank you for taking the time to respond, and thanks for taking the time to explain to all of us the inner and outer workings of what it is you do!
@@tomtendam6550 A little tank car trivia for you. When you see a tank car with only one (1) dome on top, it is a high pressure car like mine that both loads and unloads from the top. A tank car with two (2) domes on top is a low pressure car that loads from the top and unloads from the bottom. Take care!
you always pull in the direction of the movable jaw on a crescent wrench to avoid slipping off or rounding the nut
No it doesn’t make a difference. Look it up, plenty of videos on it. If you use an adjustable wrench at all, you’ll figure this out pretty quickly that it makes no difference which way you orient the wrench. One cheap, junky garbage wrenches it may help but on good wrenches, it doesn’t matter.
15:45 don't they make some sort of ratchet so you don't have to constantly take the wrench off when tightening and loosening?
Yes, a standard socket will work on an undamaged plug. The problem we run into is that the majority of these plugs are so chewed up by pipe wrenches that sockets cannot fit properly. Thanks.
~ I'm so glad that I came across your channel the other day. I've always had some sort of attraction(Not sexually 😳😬) to tanker cars and I always wanted to have my own distribution center, well at least since I became of age anyways. I do work for the railroad but in communications.
We have a corn syrup unloading facility near where I live and I was recently informed that a fuel unloading facility similar to yours is being constructed very soon, near the other one.
"...a smart application of force..." (Be smarter than the tools you're working with!)
Does the car maker ever give you new replacement plugs in case they are stripped beyond use by a previous installer?
If you were me, you would need some knee pads for kneeling down, ha, ha! Good to see someone who knows and respects basic physics.
How many people do you employ and what State are you in?
Sorry for the 20 questions but I'm a bit excited, lol.
It still amazes me the excitement trains bring to so many! To your first question, No, virtually all fittings inside the protective housing are restricted to repair shops and mobile repair units from shops. Second, day to day there are two of us, but once you add in those offsite, logistics, accounting, etc., that number grows quickly. Third, Indiana. Thanks for sharing.
I work with liquid ethylene (cryogenic, Highly flammable) at a chemical plant. All of our Railcar fittings are brass with brass nuts on our piping. (Brass to avoid sparks when hammering fittings together) why is it with LP you use steel fittings? You said they last longer, but couldn’t they create an ignition source? Not being a smart ass.
Yes steel could pose a problem. In my experience, as well as the propane field in general, our biggest threat/source of ignition comes from static electricity. Grounding the cars is our best preventative for that. The general characteristics, of propane ( its ranges of flammability for example) are such that non-sparking tools are not usually used or needed. I use ACME fittings instead of Kemper style fittings (to connect the hoses to the ESV's) to avoid the use of hammers. My SOP's specify the use of spanner wrenches only on the ACME nuts, whereas Kemper style nuts are almost always tightened using a brass or bronze hammer. Thank you for the comment.
How do you know when you have emptied the car of propane ?
How do you prevent the nitrogen from being pushed into the propane liquid line once all the propane is out of the tanker ?
I use two ways to prove the car is empty of liquid. The first is by looking at the sight glasses in the liquid lines, when they go clear or mostly clear I open the Sample Line Valve. This valve is connected to a tube that goes almost to the bottom of the car. Open this valve and when only propane vapor comes out for at least 10 seconds, this proves that virtually all available liquid has left the car. Recheck the glasses, when they are completely clear the car is as empty of liquid as you can get it for now. The nitrogen is only used to open the stinger, the nitrogen and propane are never in contact, the entire valve would have catastrophically fail for the propane and nitrogen to mix. Hope this helps, thanks.
@@mypropaneinsights6074 you don't replace the space in the tank with nitrogen ? I thought you used the nitrogen to displace the propane and force it out of the tanker once it gets down to the bottom, like water pumped into oil to force oil out the top completely displacing the oil.
@@ocsrc I use propane vapor from my storage tanks. The compressors push the vapor into the car and this pushes out the liquid. When that is done I reverse the flow of the compressors and pull out as much of the vapor as possible. The nitrogen only goes to the safety valves.
@@ocsrc It doesn’t make any sense to use a different gas to displace the liquid propane. As he said, he uses propane vapor that is pumped in to displace the LP is the way to go. No cross contamination, no extra equipment, lesser cost over time as you can reuse what you already have on site.
cresent wrench is used backwards....
Thanks for sharing.
18:32 "Slide your nut back, get your nipple to drop"
Wait, I didn't realise this was going to be _that_ kind of video! 🤣
You sound a little similiar to JFK.
Using the adjustable wrench in the manner that you did is improper. It spreads the jaw and will allow the wrench to slip causing rounded corners. The fixed jaw should always go on the opposite side of the force.
No. The orientation doesn’t matter. Anyone who’s used one for any period of time knows this. It’s already been tested and proved many times over, look it up. If you’re reefing on something that is tight enough to make an adjustable wrench slip, you’re using the wrong tool.
Alls I heard was "my ways the best way and the others guys are idiots that break my equipment"hahaha
Thanks for sharing.
This ain't his first rodeo. One your first day, do you (a) figure it out yourself, (b) ask the guy who started yesterday, or (c) listen to the guy who's been doing this shit for 30 years? (I betting you're an "a" person.)
What brand of hose is that ???? Do they make them for bleach or caustic soda????
The 2" hoses are made by a company called Smart Hose. I have only seen them rated for LPG and anhydrous ammonia.
@@mypropaneinsights6074 ok ok we run smart hoses to
What size nitrogen tanks do you use ? Is it dry nitrogen ?
I use "T" sized, I think they are 304 cubic feet in volume, depending on what pressure they fill them to. I manifold three of them together but pull from only one at a time. I use commercial grade nitrogen. Nothing special, no high purity grades of any kind. The moisture content in commercial grade is very minute, almost trace level but not quite, and causes me no issues. Hope this helps, thanks.
How long does it take to fill up each one ?
We do not load rail cars here, only offload them. I have never loaded a car but I have spoken with a couple people involved with loading, and according to them it is a generally efficient process that takes about 1-1.5 hours.
You should watch his video on making a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. ...
How to become unionized and over complicate every job. Before the union white knights rill in let's talk all the toppled cranes...
Where is the grounding wire
At ground level.
sorry, but hank hill handles all my propane needs.
Thanks for sharing.
if you don't want to strip valves use a crescent wrench do not use a pipe wrench on a valve or you will strip the nut and the threads it needs to be hand tight then wrench tight. Never use a pipe wrench on nuts or valves you will strip them.
That is not how you use a crescent wrench
Yeah it is. Works just fine. Anyone who’s spent anytime working with one knows orientation doesn’t make a difference.