Fuel Mix Up Damages at Least 7 Cars at Plainville Gas Station, Again

Before anyone gets excited, refer to this chart of fuel coding in color.

Hatches on the ground of all fueling stations have similar paint. You can tell what is under the thing.

Fuel Storage Tank Color Code

Im glad the driver got fired. This is one screw up that's not acceptable.

 

Have you seen any of those colors?

35 years driving and the only thing i've seen in teh ground are copper colored lids.

My second to last mechanic job was 5 years at one shop with a gas station on the same property. Both were one building. Nothing but copper colored lids.

 

We have em in our stations. Two new stations were built with colored lids.

The one station I ran for several years also had colored lids. We had 4 tanks. One recovery tank, three other tanks for the low to high test gas, 40,000 total capacity. A tanker showed up every 30 hours with three grades onboard. 3 to 4000 gallons each more or less depending on season of year. Sometimes a full 8000 gallons of low test prior to holidays.

Our owner always bought whatever gas in amounts sold that day, 24 hours. Never more unless holidays. His profit was around 5 to 7 cents a gallon. Not much, but when you sell 5000 to 7000 gallons a day and night.. that's something.

 

We never went by color alone. We always read the tag. Color can change and I've seen it done. We had red for leaded regular for years while other branded stations had red for super. A cross dump happens to the best of drivers. Our company figured it would happen on an average of 5 years. Of course you would never want it happen to you but there's always the rule. That company was lucky that only 7 cars we're affected. Firing the driver is harsh and we don't know the whole story. I crossed dump when I first started to haul fuel. I put 3500 gallons of regular leaded in the super tank. Right when the last bit of gas went in I noticed what I had done. I went right in and told the manager to stop all sales of the super until contacted by the company. It was 3:00 am. I faced the boss the very next morning and got an additional 6 months probation. I never mixed again, 20 so years. They pumped over all the super to the regular tank and refilled the super. As long as we were honest about what we did you would most likely keep your job. But try to cover it up and your were gone before the truck cooled.

 

I don't doubt you may have seen only copper colored lids, as some stations are a bit lax about color coding.

I drove gas for eight years, took ten years off from it, and I'm back doing it again.

Many times if the station tank lids aren't painted, then there is a metal tag on the fill pipe under the lid, or the product name or abbreviation is painted on the concrete next to the lid.(RNL, MGNL, PNL, or unl, mg, prem, etc.)

Most lids I encounter are painted. I've painted my share of 'em, too. Thing is, I'm always looking for the lids. I can't even drive into a gas station on my off time without finding the fills, and determining the best way to enter the station with a tanker, to set up for a fast drop and easy exit.

 

I did just that at our station filling a car early this morning.

To my surprise they changed the lids to copper color. So much for previous experiences. But a tanker can get in there and dump to the three tanks present. One is diesel. That makes 4. I did a walk around just like you described, how would I get a semi in and out of there.

However I did not stay long, our law is very watchful. And they like to get into EVERYTHING that goes around them. =)

 

Yup, happens. Crossed diesel into super. Completely my fault getting complacent, rushing (paid by the load). My heart stopped when I glanced at the fitting glass and saw a familiar blueish tint. Immediately stopped the drop, ran inside and told the guy to shutdown the pumps. I knew I was done. Boss shrugged his shoulders told me to take a day off and that was that. Lesson learned. Diesel FIRST, I draw out a quick diagram of whats in what compartment and what line is going to what tank. OCD with it now

 

I believe that complacently is all of our downfalls. No matter how many times you check before you drop at sometime in our business you're going to get that felling of your heart stopping and looking to see that tag change. You never want that to happen but you all know the saying. Of course it never happens when you're the guy that only hauls one product, like jet fuel. That's why we all tell the new guys that get your routine down and stick to it.

 

You can also have the best, from my POV who were a instructor dumping gas into the tanks in my station. Stagger into the building seeking painkillers after his spine failed. One of my instructors from my original trucking school... Creak! No more back. No more tanking. He made it back home. But that was that.