The "old phosphate chemical guy," Meteor910 mused that he still had "...the old Ambroid ACL phosphate hopper car." Was there a reasonable chance the Frisco would have handled that? I imagine it was for carrying phosphate rock (ore) from the Tampa Bay area mining operations. The product would have gone to wet-process plants or burners on the East coast. Other burners were in Idaho, East Tennessee and the Carolinas (I think), and generally located near mines. Other processing took place in Michigan and South St. Louis, among other places, but these did not use phosphate ore the ACL car might have carried. The South St. Louis plant (under new ownership) still has covered hoppers spotted to carry product, but UP (ex-MP) does that. Ken, you "got to build that..." anyway and just invoke Rule 1. George "son of an 'old phosphate chemical guy'" Nelson
George, Just call me "P2O5 Ken"! These ACL cars were used generally just in Florida. They hauled phosphate rock from the huge mines in "bone valley" on the eastern coast of Tampa Bay to the many wet process phosphoric acid plants that were there, many still are. They are heavy duty hoppers, as the rock is heavy, dusty and a bit corrosive. The receiving plants digested the phosphate rock (ore), mainly impure calcium and magnesium phosphate, in sulfuric acid (H2SO4), doing a simple exchange into phosphoric acid (H3PO4) and calcium/magnesium sulfates (gypsum). The latter had little value and was piled up in huge stacks. The highest points in Florida are the tops of the gyp stacks in bone valley. The phosphoric acid was then used either at the same plant, or shipped to others in acid tank cars, to make a range of calcium, ammonium and potassium phosphate fertilizers for agricultural use. This process for making phosphoric acid is called the "wet process". Most of the plants were/are in the southeast or out west. I would doubt that the ACL phosphate rock cars, or Seaboard's, they had them too, ever got very far from Tampa Bay, but anything is possible. There could have been some rock sales to others which the Frisco, or AT&N, might have been involved in, but I don't really know. The "burners" you are talking about are part of the other process for phosphoric acid, the "thermal route". This makes a much higher quality/assay phosphoric acid, still H3PO4, which is widely used in food, dairy, beverage, cleaning, metal treating, liquid fertilizers, yeast, etc. It starts with the same ore, but reduces it in a thermal furnace with gads of electricity into elemental phosphorus, P4. Our plant in Idaho, still running, uses as much electricity as Kansas City. There were such plants only in Tennessee, Florida, Idaho, Montana and Canada. You need to be close to the ore, and close to inexpensive electricity, plus you need a good source of coke and silica sand. The P4 is then shipped, under water in tank cars, which are built like battleships, to the burning plants, where the P4 is burned in air and scrubbed with water to make H3PO4. The phosphoric acid is then sold, or reacted into about 900 different kinds and grades of sodium, potassium ammonium, calcium, magnesium, etc. phosphate salts. They are used everywhere. I'm enjoying some phosphoric acid right now as I am drinking a diet Pepsi. It, as well as all colas, has a smidge of phosphoric acid in it to give it that bite on the tongue. The burning salts plants were/are in NJ, PA, MO, MI, GA, ID, KS, TN, IN, OH, SC, CA, and Canada. Most of our rail traffic for all of this was via UP, N&W, GTW, Sou, & SP. UP was by far our biggest rail carrier corporate-wide. The only SLSF moves I recall were for equipment delivery, but some of our outbound chemical shipments must have seen some SLSF movement. There will be a short quiz on this in the morning! P2O5 Ken
