Diesel Fuel Doctor was involved in an interesting fuel polishing recently. This train carries 10,000 gallons of fuel on board and – with a busy schedule – fills its tanks every other day. But, because the schedule is fluid and sends the unit all over the country, it doesn’t always get to fill from “known” locations. They fill up when they can, where they need to. The problem for these guys was that they could only run about 5 hours before they plugged up their filters! The bigger problem was a $35,000/day penalty for not completing the route on schedule!!
Here is the before and after on the front tank. See how the water settles down to the bottom? And all the sediment that is in there? Remember, the pickup tubes that send fuel to the engines run to the bottom of the tank, too!
You can also see that there was suspended, or “entrained,” water in the fuel. The before sample is cloudy, and the after sample is clear.
This is before and after in the back tank. No water in this one, but plenty of sediment in the bottom of the tank.
We used four mobile fuel polishers (two at each end of the train) to clean the tanks and polish the fuel in one day. The train wnet immediately on its way and made it to its scheduled preventive maintenance cycle afterward!
If you suspect poor fuel quality in your tanks, please contact us!