Iaeger/Auville question

[NW Mailing List]

Hi John. 

I copied the following information out of the Water Treatment chapter of a 1938 Railway Maintenance Cyclopedia.  It doesn’t completely answer your question (and Mike’s not at all), but it does provide some context. Having not excelled in Chemistry, the full chapter is an interesting read. Lime was used to fight scale; the other purposes of water treatment were to reduce components that caused corrosion and foaming.

THE ELIMINATION OF SCALE

The carbonate hardness may be removed from the water through chemical treatment by taking advantage of the fact that the calcium and magnesium carbonates are soluble only in water containing carbonic acid gas. If this carbonic acid is removed, the carbonates become insoluble and precipitate.
This may be accomplished by adding just enough lime (calcium hydrate) to take up the carbonic acid. This process, if completed perfectly, will remove all the carbonate solids and leave no dissolved solid in its place.

The sulphate hardness is removed usually by introducing carbonate of soda (soda ash, sal soda, wash soda). This combines with the sulphates of lime to form carbonates of lime and sulphate of soda. If enough lime is then added to neutralize any carbonic acid present, the carbonate of lime will be precipitated, leaving the sulphate of soda dissolved in the water. The sulphate of magnesia and the nitrates and chlorides of lime and magnesia may be treated in a somewhat similar manner.
This brings out a further distinction between the carbonates on the one hand and the sulphates, nitrates and chlorides on the other. Treatment to remove the former leaves no residue dissolved in the water, while treatment for the latter leaves the sodium sulphate in the water, which may lead to difficulties, as explained later. A considerable number of chemicals may be used for water softening, but lime and soda ash are so much cheaper that it is only in exceptional cases or in proprietary boiler compounds that any of the others are used.

Matt Goodman
Columbus, Ohio

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On Aug 15, 2023, at 5:58 PM, NW Mailing List <nw-mailing-list at nwhs.org> wrote:

Did they use limestone or burned/slaked lime as part of the water treatment process? That would require large amount of limestone in and out
John Samples

Sent from my iPhone

> On Aug 15, 2023, at 12:34 PM, NW Mailing List <nw-mailing-list at nwhs.org> wrote:
> 
> 
> I've asked this before, but it has been a while. Does anyone have any info about this structure at Auville engine service area?
> It looks like it is loading into side dump gons.  I have another photo of it unloading into coal hoppers.
> The tall structure is the water treatment building, but I can't imagine it pulls that much minerals out of the water can it?
> There is a yard drawing from 1923 that labels a building near the siding as "Lime".
> in the drawing, it shows the 200k gallon water tank located in front of the water softening tower, but the water tank ended up on the opposite side of the tracks (over our right shoulder in this photo)
> 
> Mike Rector
> 
> <image.png>
> 
> 
> <image.png>
> 
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