Tanker Terminology 101

I get asked the "Got a light" question fairly frequently, too. My response is always the same ... I causally point up to the nearest post or streetlight.

 

Doing gasses, oxygen, nitrogen, etc, you have to have some driving experience, they do their own training, the pay is good. Strict adherence to safety.

 

It doesn't move when it wants to.....YOU make it move...learn how to tame your driving to keep the beast asleep !

 

It was always fun hauling liquid helium. -452 and if you worked at it, it would surge. Now if helium is lighter than air, and your over weight.. Do you take some off or put some more on? When you delivered compressed helium , to find any leaks. You talk to yourself .. Squeaky voice.. leaking.. Regular voice.. No leak. One way that a rest area will clear out in just seconds.. Have one of your bursting disc burst when your loaded. 3000 lbs pressure of compressed gas gone in just a few short minutes or less. And hundreds of cu. ft.

 

If your going up a hill like Donner. That surge helps push you up the hill. Then when you park, you use the trailer brakes and no tractor brakes. That way the tractor can roll back and forth freely.

 

When you haul into the airports the way that they do it to pull a sample. You keep your load valve closed and opened the internal, dropping in about a gallon. Close your internal valve, get a clean metal bucket, and open your product valve dropping in the product into the metal bucket, then they sample the fuel. What sometimes helps is when hauling JP8 is to try to carry a load of highway diesel. Or gasoline before Av gas.

 

Warning, I know nothing of tankers.

Can someone explain why I see listing for O/O but they specify DOT 407 trailer? Whats the difference between that and any other trailer, DOT 406, 410, etc.

Also, I have seen a few pictures and video of tanker pull trailers. One was a bobtail tanker pulling what looked like 40ft tanker, and the other was opposite. A semi pulling a tanker and then a smaller tanker behind it like doubles. Why is this not more common?

 

Not sure on the 2nd part, but as to the first, dot 407 is a style of tank. Used for general purpose chemical service as well as food grade. Typically stainless steel construction, varying in size, but usually from 5-7000 gallons. It is by far the most common style of non gasoline tank trailer you see.

Here's a pdf where you can learn about the different types of trailers.
http://www.fmcsa.dot.gov/documents/08-cargotankbulkpkg.pdf

 

in a nut shell, the 300 series is thinner or lighter guage of stainless steel than the 400 series.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B-Train

is this what you were talking about?
super B trains are very popular in Canada, and most fuel is done on b train.