Re: (erielack) #3599, Drew Chemical

[walter smith <wsmith5957_@_yahoo.com>]

Paul & others...........I posted this a while back & it may be in the archives 
BUT - In the early 60s, I worked as fireman on the New York Division (ERIE 
side). Westbound with a commuter train in the afternoon on a hot summer day, I 
had the door open on my side of the old RS2 and as we crossed the drawbridge, I 
noticed a horrible smell. The engineer explained that the Company parked a 
string of tankcars from Drew Chemical on the siding here and had a laborer to 
open the petcocks on the bottom & let the 'stinkywater' drain into the river. In 
a minute or so we went by a siding off the Eastbound maintrack holding 5 or 6 
tankcars busily polluting the river. I kept the door on the fireman side closed 
after this........
  Whoever the laborer was, he should have gotten combat pay for performance 
'above and beyond the call of duty'.

Regards,

Walt Smith




________________________________
From: "Tupaczewski, Paul R (Paul)" <paul.tupaczewski_@_alcatel-lucent.com>
To: EL Mail List <erielack_@_lists.railfan.net>
Sent: Mon, August 9, 2010 4:39:29 PM
Subject: RE: (erielack) #3599, Drew Chemical

> I have often wondered WHAT did Drew Chem really do?Bill 
> Shep's 1974 track diagrams show the schematic; Sanford maos 
> give dimensions.
> 
> A search on Drew gave some info, relating to margine. But no details.
> 
> Tabor's books say that they were one of the Lack's largst 
> customers, and that up to 50 tank cars would be there at times.


Drew Chemical produced a wide variety of consumer and industrial products based 
on refined vegetable oils and other fat sources. Synthetic greases and margarine 
(yes, margarine!) were products of Drew.

Drew sold its Boonton operation to PVO (Pacific Vegetable Oil) International in 
the early 1970s, who ultimately closed down the plant in the early 1980s. Drew 
was later bought by Ashland Chemical Company. PVO is apparently still around, 
but there's almost no information online to be found about them.




> A visit to their site some 10 years ago, found little remaining.

Today there is a Walmart on the site, and you'd never know there was a chemical 
factory there. :(



> Specicly, what products came in, and out, and in what types of cars?
> and to which buildings?

Well, according to some old DL&W waybills  have, they received a LOT of "soya" 
(soybean oil in today's terms) and animal tallow (i.e., "fat"). Coconut oil was 
another inbound product. They did receive some covered hoppers of chemicals used 
to produce some of the products, and an occasional boxcar of 55-gallon drums 
would arrive at the "warehouse" adjacent to the main office building. The oil 
was unloaded at either the "oil" track (adjacent to the water track) or the main 
track in front of the primary production building on Division Street. 98% of the 
inbound traffic was tank cars, with covered hoppers and the occasional boxcar 
making up the other 2%.  I'm not sure how much was shipped out by rail, but if 
it was, it went out in tank cars.

As a kid, I used to love staring at all those ACFX and GATX tank cars as we 
drove past. And that smell of FAT and GREASE will forever linger in my mind!




> I heard somewhere that used water was hauled, in tankcars, to 
> Secaucus, and dumped into the river; were these
> cars specific to this traffic, or were they cleaned 
> somewhere, and used for other products?

The process of making some of the products involved a ton of water, and the 
town's sewer system couldn't handle all the wastewater, so Drew originally used 
a fleet of old SHPX tank cars to load the wastewater into. The DL&W (and later, 
EL) would haul these down to the Hackensack River and just dump it in there. 
This continued into EL years, when the town complained about it, and they 
reportedly started unloading it right into the Croxton swamp :)

In later EL years, the SHPX cars were pretty worn out (one of them reportedly 
was responsible for one the Montville wrecks), and a fleet of used 50' cars was 
purchased. A large "W" was spray painted on the side to indicate its use for 
wastewater service.  Bill Sheppard's diagram book points out the "water" track 
where these cars were loaded.



> so many questions...... and so little time.

Keep 'em coming! :)

    - Paul

    The Erie Lackawanna Mailing List
    http://EL-List.railfan.net/
    To Unsubscribe: http://Lists.Railfan.net/erielackunsub.html





	The Erie Lackawanna Mailing List
	http://EL-List.railfan.net/
	To Unsubscribe: http://Lists.Railfan.net/erielackunsub.html

------------------------------

End of EL Mail List Digest V3 #3560
***********************************