by William Lafferty » July 6, 2023, 2:33 pm
The modern preferred method is to heat the sulphur into a molten state that can be transported by pipeline, highway or rail tanker, or by water, generally barges fitted with tanks. The heated sulphur (around 300 degrees F) can stay molten in a sealed insulated container for days without needing heating in transit. Solid sulphur is much harder to ship, prone to hard caking, and generally an unpleasant cargo for perhaps obvious reasons. There, of course, have never been any dedicated liquid sulphur vessels on the lakes, although shipments of solid sulphur began in 1923 with New York State Barge Canal motorships bringing it from the coast to Buffalo and Detroit, and to Chicago by barge from the south for transshipment onto crane boats. A special terminal was established at Chicago in the late 1940s at Western Avenue on the South Branch of the Chicago river to facilitate this type of transshipment, later building a new facility ion 1956 at 106th Street and the Calumet. Anybody remember the ill-fated Marine Sulphur Queen? At about the time it sank the switch to molten sulphur carriage was well underway, at about the same time solid sulphur as a cargo on the lakes began to disappear. I'm sure increased environmental awareness also had something to do with. I'd say rail is by far the preferred mode of transport today.
The modern preferred method is to heat the sulphur into a molten state that can be transported by pipeline, highway or rail tanker, or by water, generally barges fitted with tanks. The heated sulphur (around 300 degrees F) can stay molten in a sealed insulated container for days without needing heating in transit. Solid sulphur is much harder to ship, prone to hard caking, and generally an unpleasant cargo for perhaps obvious reasons. There, of course, have never been any dedicated liquid sulphur vessels on the lakes, although shipments of solid sulphur began in 1923 with New York State Barge Canal motorships bringing it from the coast to Buffalo and Detroit, and to Chicago by barge from the south for transshipment onto crane boats. A special terminal was established at Chicago in the late 1940s at Western Avenue on the South Branch of the Chicago river to facilitate this type of transshipment, later building a new facility ion 1956 at 106th Street and the Calumet. Anybody remember the ill-fated [I]Marine Sulphur Queen[/I]? At about the time it sank the switch to molten sulphur carriage was well underway, at about the same time solid sulphur as a cargo on the lakes began to disappear. I'm sure increased environmental awareness also had something to do with. I'd say rail is by far the preferred mode of transport today.