I can find vague references to storage tanks in Chama located somewhere about where 2nd street is today. Does anyone have any information on these tanks - dimensions, number, capacity??
Bob. Around the Second Street area would differently be the Logical place to put them. From the “Oil Racks” to where the road is today, there is about 20 feet in elevation change, and its pretty steep. Perfect for gravity feed to the racks. I’v seen a couple of picts of the racks back in the day, but I never paid much attention to the tanks.
Dave, somewhere, sometime, I have seen a picture of the racks, with cars and the tanks in the background, but I’ll be damned if I can find that pic now. You have already added a piece of the puzzle - the elevation difference. Thanks.
Bob, Found this shot from 1965. It shows the tank rack, looking South. But the tanks aren’t visible.
Photo Credit: Bob ?
That sounds about right where the tanks would be.
Here’s a pick of the oil rack on my layout. It’s a custom built structure inspired by the Chama rack:
Link to Large Oil Rack Image #1
Link to Large Oil Rack Image #2
Here’s a link to another image of the real Chama oil rack
@Dave - Thanks for posting that picture, I have not seen that one before.
@Matt - I have seen your rack in other posts and admire it. The picture of the racks at Chama today I have seen before.
Doing some more digging last evening I also acquired this information from the Narrow Gauge Discussion forum. I didn’t make note of the poster, I will hunt it up and credit it later.
Excerpt from this post http://ngdiscussion.net/phorum/read.php?1,232581,232614#msg-232614
“The storage tanks were just west of Chama. The pipeline came in on 2nd St. and tanks were west on 2nd St. There is a gate across 2nd. St. now where the tanks were. The pipeline still exists through town. In the 1990’s a contractor digging with a backhoe hit it and broke a hole in it. It caused all kinds of excitement as no one knew what it was. The Gas Co. said it wasn’t thiers, along with the water and sewer people. Someone (might have been me) said it was the old Gramps pipeline. They said that made sense because it smelled like oil.”
I also ran across this on a Yahoo Discussion forum, again I was delinquent and didn’t make note of the poster. I will try to find the credit for this one as well.
Excerpt from this post http://www.yahoogroups.com/neo/groups/HOn3/conversations/topics/84169
"In the 1940s, the field was producing about 1200-1400 barrels/day, which would have equated with 11-12 carloads each and every day over the route. This traffic is a large part of what kept the narrow gauge from Chama to Alamosa running year round, and helped the line survive into the 1960s, as the Rio Grande could not shift the traffic to trucks as it could with many of the other shippers on the route.
These runs continued until early 1964, when the refinery burned. Being small and technologically obsolete, the decision was made not to rebuild the facility. After the Alamosa refinery fire, oil from the field was trucked to Farmington until most production ceased in the 1980s.
Today, the loading racks at Chama survive and have been partially restored by the Friends?. A number of the UTLX tank cars survive as well. The pipeline, along with the large storage tanks near Chama, were scrapped."
My guess is that the tanks were dismantled sometime between 1964 and the early '70s when the line was sold to Colorado and New Mexico to create the Cumbres and Toltec Scenic RR.
Following some basic math, and assuming 1300 bpd at peak, I would need something in the range of 60,000 gallons of stroage (rounding on the high side). Crunching the numbers would yield two tanks of approximately 30,000 gallons or 20 foot diamtere by 13 ft high at the eave, with a conical roof and I would choose a 5-10 slope on the roof. I would also assume a riveted construction with plates probably 6-8 feet wide by around 12 feet in length.
This is my ‘imagineering’ on the tanks.
Bob,
Do Sanborn Fire Insurance Maps exist for Chama? If so those might provide a good clue about location and size.
Craig
Historic Aerials has a topo map from 1957 that show the tanks up behind the high school, north of the loop at the end of 2nd street.
Zoom out and you can see them.
Bob, thanks a lot. That was what I was looking for in terms of location. Much too far away to be included in any form of model of the area around the racks. From the map, it appears that there was a large tank, and two smaller tanks. I am registering for a membership to the Narrow Gauge Discussion Forum, hoping to get some clarification there. I have already searched the posts, who knows.
Bob C.
Boomer,
The oil field of Lafayette ‘Gramps’ Hughes didn’t come in until 1936 or 37, so I am of the belief that the tanks would have been steel at that point in history. Could be wrong though. I have not found enough hard information to be sure. Information regarding the storage tanks is sketchy at best, and so far I have not been able to locate any pictures of them. I just joined the Narrow Gauge Discussion Forum and am going to see if there is any info to be purloined from those folks. There is a wealth of stuff on the Gramps tank cars, and a little bit about the oil field, but so far not much on the storage tanks at Chama. I may also be looking in the wrong direction. Who owned the tanks??
Bob 's information, showing the location on a topographic map demonstrates that the tanks were located approximately half a mile away and up hill possibly as much as 40 feet. That would be a considerable amount of real estate on a garden railroad at 1:20 (something the SWMBO will not relinquish). Forced perspective is a possibility, but not likely. I will continue to dig to see if I can find any real data on the tanks, but for now I do not intend to try to include them, too far distant to be pertinent.
I had not considered the possibility of wood stave storage tanks, thanks for grounding me and providing some neat pics. Yeah, the cactus is a hoot.
Bob C.
Bob Cope said: That would be a considerable amount of real estate on a garden railroad at 1:20 (something the SWMBO will not relinquish).
You don’t know unless you ask?
@Boomer - With out going into the whole history, the Gramps oil field was primarily a gravity fed system from the well head to the storage/racks. This presented some difficulties in the colder weather keeping the heavy crude flowing. The line was sometimes shut down in the winter if it got too cold.
@Rooster - My railroad domain (the back yard) consists of two main features. A 20 x 40 foot in ground pool which SWMBO adores, and I curse. A large hole in the ground I pour money into with no real return. The second is an equally large raised drain field for my septic, a mountain 42 inches high which by law I have only the privilege of running a mower over. These two considerable obstacles allow for me to thread a needle of about a 235 long loop, as yet still in the dreams and visions stage.
At some point, hopefully this summer, I will be adding some retaining walls to the drain field to expand the available area (top edge of the wall) where a mainline might be located, and ease the pushing of that mower on the 45 degree side slopes.
20 foot diameter circles are the non negotiable mainline curvature I will be using. My K27 likes the large radius. I already need to plan for at least a 6 foot bridge somewhere in that loop to allow the riding mower escape access to maintain the remaining large front yard. I tried negotiating the front yard for layout, but that was immediately vetoed. At least I have the club to visit on meeting days and sometimes other weekends when visiting my daughter and family.
Bob Cope said:
@Boomer - With out going into the whole history, the Gramps oil field was primarily a gravity fed system from the well head to the storage/racks. This presented some difficulties in the colder weather keeping the heavy crude flowing. The line was sometimes shut down in the winter if it got too cold.
@Rooster - My railroad domain (the back yard) consists of two main features. A 20 x 40 foot in ground pool which SWMBO adores, and I curse. A large hole in the ground I pour money into with no real return. The second is an equally large raised drain field for my septic, a mountain 42 inches high which by law I have only the privilege of running a mower over. These two considerable obstacles allow for me to thread a needle of about a 235 long loop, as yet still in the dreams and visions stage.
At some point, hopefully this summer, I will be adding some retaining walls to the drain field to expand the available area (top edge of the wall) where a mainline might be located, and ease the pushing of that mower on the 45 degree side slopes.
20 foot diameter circles are the non negotiable mainline curvature I will be using. My K27 likes the large radius. I already need to plan for at least a 6 foot bridge somewhere in that loop to allow the riding mower escape access to maintain the remaining large front yard. I tried negotiating the front yard for layout, but that was immediately vetoed. At least I have the club to visit on meeting days and sometimes other weekends when visiting my daughter and family.
Bob
Once again this is Chama oil storage your contemplating/going too build right? It is already in your head so your gonna make it anyway/eventually right?
Did you ask?
Dave,
When I made the original post, I had no information at all regarding the location, size, etc. Our Benevolent Dictator posted a link to a topographic map showing the location to be somewhere in the vicinity of a half mile from the racks. In scale that is like 132 feet (close to the full width of my place). After learning that from Bob, my interest is now more in the ‘I can’t find this, does anybody know it?’. If I find the information, I may build the tanks as a modeling exercise possibly for an diorama or some such. It will be interesting to find out whether they are wood stave as Dave T suggests or riveted steel as I believe they would have been. Maybe I will compile some of the information I have gathered and put it in a reference doc, although most of it was gleaned from posts on the Narrow Gauge Discussion Forum.
Bob C.
Bob Cope said:
I already need to plan for at least a 6 foot bridge somewhere in that loop to allow the riding mower escape access to maintain the remaining large front yard.
Sorry for getting off the Chama tank topic somewhat, but I thought this might help in your planning.
Similar to your layout access needs, I had to keep a natural drainage and potential fire road accessible when planning our layout. The solution was twin 6 foot bridges. Kind of like the twin bridges that span the Rio Chama river.
The bridges are powder coated steel custom made for us by Eaglewings Iron Craft. The bridge piers are a high density foam material. They were made by a company based in Florida that I saw at a train show in Anaheim, CA. Unfortunately I don’t think they are around anymore.
The bridges are easy to remove. I just unscrew some SplitJaw rail clamps and lift the bridges out. The center pier is held in place by the weight of the bridges. I keep the bridges and center pier indoors during the winter.
Here’s a pic of the bridges after being reinstalled last summer:
Matt,
No problem. I always like to see how others solve issues, it helps me with mine. What you have is a similar idea to what I was thinking, but I was going to do two 3’ spans of either wood truss or a freelance version of a pin connected truss on the SR&RL a friend made in On2. I don’t have any need to get fire fighting equipment through my back yard, and if I do I have far greater problems than worrying about a few hundred dollars worth of track and such.
I also admire you stone work on the layout. I am amused at how when I lived in East Tennessee I got tired of ‘farming rocks’ as it were. Now, living on the great coral reef we call Florida, I wish I had a few of them rocks. 
The only way to get stones worth working with is to purchase them, and the dealers here are right proud of their rocks (no smart A$$ remarks Rooster).
Bob C.
I would like to build an oil loading dock for my “Sararon” garden railroad. Does any one have either the prototype or 1:20.3 dimensions for the dock at Chama? Also, has anyone considered building one out of styrene as opposed to brass?
Thanks
David,
There are some good photos online which will give a good overall outline. I am sure one of the magazines have published some at one time or another. I will search my NGSLGs and see what I can find. It is not a complicated structure and unless you are going for a ‘scale’ model, it will not be difficult to represent.
Bob C.
David Silverton said:
Does any one have either the prototype or 1:20.3 dimensions for the dock at Chama? Also, has anyone considered building one out of styrene as opposed to brass?
There’s this really nice Sn3 model (compressed in the photos, but builds to a full scale model)
They mention “full plans” so there must be scale drawings of the real thing available somewhere. Possibly in one of the Narrow Gauge Gazette issues?
I don’t see why it couldn’t be made out of styrene. The oil dock I had built by J.S. Woodcrafts is metal (brass) and wood. I take it indoors during the winter. A styrene model might be better for year round use.
David,
I have a set of plans in my files for the oil dock in either ho or s scale, will have to dig them out. the biggest problem right now is finding a place to copy them they are at least 24 x 36" in size. so for the cost of coping and mailing I have a set. will have to check on a place to copy as the place I used to use is now closed.
Please advise
Al P.