locomotive

June 4, 2019
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Problem: An engineer consulting with a railroad called with an application at a locomotive repair facility. Over time, lube oil and diesel fuel leaked from the locomotives into an inspection pit. Periodically, the oil along with sand and dirt collected in the pit was discharged into a retention pond. The oil was then skimmed from the surface of the pond and the water discharged to the sewer.

The roe skimmer wasn’t quite doing a good job so he asked us for suggestions on how to better treat the water before discharging to the sewer.

Solution: We recommended installing a SPT-20 Clarifier Oil Water Separator System with our standard air-driven pump and control system to treat the water. The clarifier section of the SPT-20 would remove all of the settleable solids while the coalescing media would remove all of the oil from the waste stream.

The SPT-20 did an excellent job of cleaning up the water during the week. The only issue reported was that their sump overflowed with water every weekend so their staff was met with too much water on the pad every Monday morning.

Our maintenance manager trouble-shot the entire system with their staff through Facetime, phone calls, and emails. A local electrician also tried to find the source of the problem since there were other issues at the facility. They tried multiple modifications but the problem persisted.

Finally, we engineered and assembled a hybrid control system just for their particular location and sent it out to them. The control system worked and the system is now fully operational and the client is very pleased.


September 5, 2018
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New Locomotive Wash Bay Pump

A national railroad freight company called and requested a complete overhaul of their 40-year old locomotive wash. This 1970’s era locomotive wash system consisted of three different wash arches – a wetting arch to wet the locomotive, a second arch for soap application and washing, and a third arch with an acid wash for surface brightening.

The wash system was overhauled with to improve the following metrics:

  • Improve the wetting stage process by increasing both water volume and pressure as well as the nozzle design to apply the wetting water on the locomotive; and
  • Improve the soap application process by redesigning the nozzles’ flow patterns and volumes, increasing total flow to the nozzles, and finally adding additional pressure the process.

We started the overhaul process by removing the old soap and rinse pumps as well as the associated wiring and conduit. All of the existing control panels and associated conduit and wiring were also removed. Some equipment was retired in place to reduce demolition, re-piping and re-wiring costs. We then installed the following new equipment:

Locomotive wash bay control panel
Locomotive wash bay stainless steel control panel

Control Panel – A new stainless steel control panel was mounted, which replaced the existing four electrical panels. New conduit and heavier wire was also installed to bring it up to existing codes. The dual electric eyes were re-wired back into the new panel. New liquid level floats were installed in the storage tanks to provide both fluid level control, as well, as provide new a pump shut down safety, in the event of a low water condition in the water storage tanks.

Wetting Pump – A new 15 hp, cast iron pump was installed to supply water to the wetting arch. New, larger PVC piping as well as new heavier electrical wire was installed through new conduit to supply the proper amperage for the new higher horsepower pump.

Soap Pump – A new 15 HP stainless steel pump was installed for the new wash soap arch. New heavier wire was pulled through new conduit to supply the proper amperage needed for the new pump. The new pump was plumbed into the existing PVC piping in the pump house.

Wash Tunnel Nozzles – The existing nozzles could no longer be utilized due to flow and pressure differences from the new pumps. The existing nozzles were removed and replaced with a set of brass nozzles. A total of 42 new nozzles were installed in all three arches.

Rinse System Pump – The existing 100 hp motor and pump were removed and a new 25 hp motor and pump was set in place, aligned, and bolted to the exiting pump base.

Rinse System Control System – A new PLC-based control system housed in a stainless steel panel was installed and integrated with the existing control wires. New wiring was installed from the original motor controller system to the new control panel.

Rinse System Nozzles – The original nozzles, which were sized for the flow from the one hundred horsepower pump, were removed and new brass nozzles were installed.

The entire overhaul took less than a week to install and brought the whole wash system into the 21st century! The client has been very happy with its performance.


North Carolina

Headquarters

At WashBaySolutions.com, we have been specializing in high tech, custom-engineered solutions to complex washing and wastewater issues since 1991.
+ 1 800-453-8639

WashbaySolutions.com

sales@washbaysolutions.com

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