Oil Refinery

[carlso]

I could not find a place for scenery postings so where better than N scale. This is all N scale and I have been working on it for approx. 2 years now. This scene is on the Southern New Mexico N Scalers layout in Las Cruces, New Mexico. It is not complete yet as I need to add a lot of small details and more LED lights. the scene now has 40 LEDs. Hope you enjoy and any suggestions are welcome..........

Main Gate


Pipeline Terminal with 36" pipe and pig trap. Floating roof crude tanks with right one on pump up and left one feeding refinery. Right one about full so it will be time to switch streams soon.


Looking in towards process area and shows loading rack, propane loading area and other buildings.....


Carl

[fifer]

Well , I like it but then again I am prejudiced !!!!   

Mike

[RWCJr]

Great looking scene!!!
Robert

[Philip H]

Cool man,  I'd love to see some close-ups of the tank car loading rack and refiner itself.

Also I've never seen Propane dispensing at an oil refinery (differing sources and all).  Makes switching easier I'm sure, and there's porbably an Ed's Law example somewhere in the lower 48 . . . .

[carlso]

Thanks to all for the comments.

Philip H,

I will get some close ups for you, possibly tomorrow, and add to this thread.
Do not take this question wrong, but have you been inside a refinery complex? I don't think it is unusual to peddle propane from a refinery. Yes there are many non refinery loading places for LPG's. When Warren Petroleum was in existence they had a very large gas plant at Mt. Bellvue, Texas. They shipped large quantities of LPG via pipeline, railcars, and trucks, possibly even barges (?). When Warren was sold the buyer assumed operation of this terminal.

I worked for Chevron for 33 years at several locations and work situations. Their El Paso refinery, through the Marketing Dpt. sold & loaded propane into bobtails and semis destined West Texas, Arizona, New Mexico and Old Mexico. The trucks were scaled in/out and billed accordingly. The propane was injected into crude oil batches at the Wink, Texas pipeline station and stripped out of the crude in ELP for blending purposes and for sale. I would bet there are other refineries shipping propane from their facility as well. My experience, as an employee, is that an oil company will sell just about anything if they can make big return on it.

Thanks for your comments and look for the close ups.

Carl

[Roger Holmes]

Very nice! I'm looking forward to a night scene to show where you have located the LED's.  Is the administration building made from fluorescent light diffusor material?  I would also like to see close-ups of that building as I'm always looking for modern skyscraper ideas and this looks like it could yield some inspiration.

[Philip H]

Carl,
Having grown up in Baton Rouge, I've been around, and photographed, refineries for most of my life (as well as the various associated polyolefins and chemical plants in that area).  Perhaps they had propane that was well buried in the complex, but most of the oil guys I knew seemed to believe the two should never meet.

[peteski]

Very nice! I'm looking forward to a night scene to show where you have located the LED's.

+1  I love night scenes!

[randgust]

I'm from northwest PA and we still have several 'smaller' refineries around here (which means they are only about half a mile long).

The night views are just dazzling, even if you don't like refineries.   It's an art form around here.

http://www.urc.com/images/home/night_shot.jpg

http://www.warrenpictureplace.com/p172371059/e5ed8ad60

http://www.flickr.com/photos/retsoced/525675622/in/pool-bradfordpa

Enjoy....

[carlso]

Philip H ,

Having worked Chevron Pipeline Company in the Snyder - Wink, Iraan - Wink, and Wink - El Paso areas I can tell you that crude oil and propane do meet. In fact there is propane pumped to surface with crude. As I said earlier, we used to pump propane out of salt storage caverns and inject it into a crude batch being shipped to the refinery in El Paso. The propane, through the distillation process, comes off at the top of the column and some was used to blend with mo-gas (to increase octane) and some was sold to Propane dealers and distributors. If the refinery ever came up too heavy in propane inventory we would pipeline some of it back to Wink to be injected back into the salt caverns for storage.

Admittedly, that was the way things were before I retired in 1996. I would bet not much has changed.

Regards
Carl

[carlso]

These two images are for sure not night but gives an idea of what I have done to this point. There are 40 LED's and one of the  towers has approx. 15 fiber optics. IMHO, the fibers were a bust as you have to be very close to see them. I think the second pic you can see the front furnace  has a flickering fire in it. As Mike Fifer said, the lights were a real crowd pleaser during the fair show.Hope you enjoy.





I plan on adding another 40-50 LEDs to some of the other areas. I get them from Evan Designs (Fifer has their products) and they are pre-wired 3 volt LEDs that with his power source requires no resistors. I  guess I couldn't mention the vendor ?? ?? I was told that I could.

Carl

[Ian MacMillan]

I  guess I couldn't mention the vendor ?? ??

No, you can.

[carlso]

Randy, very nice pictures, thanks for sharing as I save any and all that I can for reference.

Roger, thanks for the interest. Yes, the Corp. office building is the light diffusor and as I recall the little squares are a scale 8'x8'. I used a gold plastic on the inside as not too many years ago gold glass was used extensively. I will take some close ups tomorrow and measure the windows.

Carl

[peteski]

Very nice!

[carlso]

Thanks Pete.

Carl