Saturday, September 28, 2019

That Sucks! (Tank Car Vacuum Implosion)

"That sucks" because of the vacuum and because an employee made a lot of scrap metal.

Les Baldwin posted three photos with the comment: "Tank car cleaning gone bad, steam injection through dip tube to heat car to boil off residual material in preparation for sending car to shop, Steam shut off, valves closed, car cooled off, pulled vacuum and this was the result."
Joe Dockrill shared
Russell Baucum And those tankers are built with heavy-duty steel in case of derailments to contain the fluids!🤔
Wes Garland It didn't perf......bendy is stronger than rigid...milk comes in plastic bags in Ontario.
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It appears the placard is 1993. That would be fuel oil.

Stanley Silva posted
Tank car collapsed by internal vacuum. This was accomplished by actually removing the air with a vacuum pump to show what can happen if tank car is steam cleaned and vent vales left shut and not allowing the air pressure to equalize as the tanker cools.
[I did not dig through the 134 comments, but my did catch a couple of interesting comments.]
Lang Thompson: That happened to a 750000 Gal Stainless Steel tank that was being steamed where I worked. Steam and a cold rain shower form a powerful force. Thankfully my finger prints weren't on that disaster.
Chris Vieira: Happened in a transload yard up in montreal once but for plastic resins. One hopper was totally like that, crushed cane. [I didn't realize that covered hoppers sealed will enough to hold a vacuum.]

David Buccolo commented on Stanley's post
I had to respond to a customer track one very early Sunday when they failed to vent a tank car of ethanol luck would have it no leaks.



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