Coal Gas/Town Gas

After World War Two the use of coal for home heating and cooking begin to decline, as the 1950’s dawned this decline accelerated and coal was replaced by Gas. The use of Natural gas was regional, and in places where natural gas was not readily available coal gasification, Coal Gas or Town Gas as it was commonly called, was used to supply requirements.  In my era municipalities produced gas for Commercial or residential use from two basic sources, that were also regional, petroleum or coal. If you were located near a cheap source of crude, low grade, oil your town gas was extracted by cooking down that crude oil. Obviously on the AIR 2 layout we would be producing town gas from coal, IE., Coal Gasification.

If you are of a certain age you will remember large “Gasometers”, round tanks with a web-like structure of steel beams and trusses, and a top that rose and fell with gas capacity. The top of the gasometer would force the gas in the tank down and into pipes, creating pressure. I remember one large gasometer directly adjacent to the Long Beach airport and the McDonnell-Douglas plant located there. We would pass it driving south on the 405 Freeway. Most,  if not all, of these structures disappeared by, say, 1970 as natural gas took over from “Town Gas”.

So fortuitously for the Atlantic Inland Railway, town gas production in Littlerock, WV., by the coal gasification process, is yet ANOTHER industry requiring large amounts of, not surprisingly…,

COAL.

In my opinion the easiest way to begin to simulate the production of Coal Gas/Town Gas is to get the Kalmbach line side industries booklet by Jeff Wilson, read the section about Coal Gas production, and model your facility on that.

Coal gas plants receive inbound loads of coal only, as a general rule. There might also be an occasional shipment of pipe used to extend service to additional customers as well.

These facilities ship, Coke, cinders, coal tar, and ammonia. The coke is a byproduct of cooking the gas out of the coal, and while it can, and usually was, used at the plant to cook more coal, it does us no good, as a model railroader to reduce outbound car loadings! 

-BUT-

I digress, so anyway, outbound loads of coke in hoppers.

Also outbound gondolas or hoppers of coal cinders or “clinker” which can go to a brick plant (Ever hear of clinker brick, or cinder block?)

Ammonia* in tank cars is a byproduct of the coal gasification process.

Coal tar** in tank cars is another byproduct of the coal gasification process.

Jeff Wilson very kindly produces a chart of the ratios of products received and shipped (IE., X- number of coal hoppers of coal in will produce Y- numbers of cars of coke out, tank cars, etc…)

Now for my twist, there’s always a twist! As residential consumption of gas went up in the 50’s other gasses were used to replace or SUPPLANT town gas supplies and these supplemental gasses needed to be mixed in specific ratios. Usually the gasses used were from the propane family, IE., LP gas. Now I should state that this process was not widespread, but by exploiting this procedure it helps me increase play value.

It just so happens I own quite a large fleet of LP gas tank cars (Atlas produced a nice model, and now I believe Kadee has produced a model, in addition to scads of Athearn gas tank cars) that will fit my era, 1952. When the “Gas Local” shows up to switch the town gas plant, in addition to car loads of coal, he will have tank cars of LP gas as well.

When he arrives he will be instructed what gas needs to be spotted for unloading today, and he will need to classify the tank cars in the storage yard, as well as the tanks he has brought with him, and spot the appropriate type of gas at the unloading racks.

I debated about listing commodities on the waybills, propane, benzine, butane…, but I THINK I will simply list the commodity as “Grade A”, B or C gas.

So when the local shows up there will be a note reading, “Loading Grade B gas today”. 

As it turns out this coal gas plant has turned into a fairly complex switching opportunity that is it has lots of play value.

I’m ALWAYS very interested in common, yet rarely modeled, industries on model railroads. Do you model a coal gasification facility on your layout? If you do how did you design the plant layout as well as the operations procedures? Will you now consider that addition of LP gas ?

Let me know.

—————

* How is ammonia used? About 80% of the ammonia produced by industry is used in agriculture as fertilizer. Ammonia is also used as a refrigerant gas, for purification of water supplies, and in the manufacture of plastics, explosives, textiles, pesticides, dyes and other chemicals.

** Coal Tar, It has both medical and industrial uses. Medicinally it is a topical medication applied to skin to treat psoriasis and seborrheic dermatitis (dandruff). It may be used in combination with ultraviolet light therapy. Industrially it is a railroad tie preservative and used in the surfacing of roads.