Western Railroad Discussion > Propane unit trains on BNSF

I just saw what appeared to be a unit train of propane tankers, buffer cars included, coming into Denver on the joint line and then heading up the C&S. I hadn’t seen mention of this. 

Is is this a regular movement?  Where from and where to?

thanks for any info. 

I believe these come from the Marcelleus shale region in the OH, WV, PA area.  I've seen a few of these trains on the BNSF Racetrack in Chicago.  In addition to the oddity of an all LPG size tank train, its loads west and empties east, seemingly contrary to most other unit type trains in the Midwest Chicago region.

Jeff Eggert

These trains run loaded south out of Denver down the Joint Line and empties run north, so almost certainly not from the OH/PA region. I've seen a few the last couple weeks though too, I was wondering about them as well.

March_hare I am sure its under a U prefix which are as needed trains.

https://www.trainorders.com/discussion/read.php?1,4776278,4776278#msg-4776278

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Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/10/19 22:32 by mammothlacrosse.

The new flammable liquid cars for crude and ethanol look like LPG cars with the new protective housing for the top valves and would be placards 1267 for oil and 1987 for ethanol (Alcohol N.O.S). And Flammabe gas cars would be placarded 1075 
What were the cars placarded.

Didn’t get close enough to see placards. But they were notably longer than standard oil or ethanol cars, and had the extended walkway on top that I’ve always associated with propane cars. 

wesleygreer Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> These trains run loaded south out of Denver down
> the Joint Line and empties run north, so almost
> certainly not from the OH/PA region. I've seen a
> few the last couple weeks though too, I was
> wondering about them as well.

My bad - I missed the part where these were on the Joint Line.  Anyway, the trains I was thinking of are in this thread. https://www.trainorders.com/discussion/read.php?2,4314634,4314951#msg-4314951

Jeff Eggert

USIDHUT- Sidney, MT - Hutchinson, KS as needed LPG loads

http://railroadfan.com/wiki/index.php/BNSF_Train_Symbols

Natural gas usually comes in two flavors, wet and dry. The eastern end of the Marcellus region (toward Binghamton NY) has a lot of dry gas, while the western end (toward Washington and Brownsville PA) has a lot of wet, oily gas.

Dry gas requires little processing, and can be piped into the network and delivered to homes and electric generation plants.

Wet gas contains "oily liquids" which are on the spectrum between oil and dry gas. These liquids (propane, ethane, hexane, octane, etc) are stripped out and are valuable feedstocks on their own. What's let is dry gas. The wet gas usually exits by rail, although some plastics plants are coming on line to grab the product near the well.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/11/19 12:49 by Lackawanna484.