First Year Performance of General
American's Newest Tank Car
Waste Treatment Plant at
Saegertown, Pa.
Gregoire Gutzeit and Glenn Enyart
Director, and Group Leader, Research and Testing Laboratory
General American Transportation Corp.
East Chicago, Indiana
On September 26, 1950, a permit was issued to General American Transportation Corporation by the Department of Health (Sanitary Water Board) of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, approving
plans for a sewage and industrial waste treatment works to purify the
waste from the Saegertown, Crawford County, Pennsylvania, tank
car repair and maintenance plant prior to the discharge into French
Creek, a tributary of the Allegheny River.
This new plant, designed and built by General American Transportation Corporation, has been previously described, (1), (2), (3),
(4), (5), (6). The process, the flow-sheet, and data concerning the
general character of influent and effluent have been discussed in the same
publication. Figure 1 is a flow diagram for reference use with this paper.
The above subject matter will be briefly summarized hereafter
in order to provide a basis for consideration of performance.
The waste resulting from tank car cleaning operations is highly
complex and variable in composition, with a predominance of organic
compounds. Its liquid portion can be roughly classified as oily and
phenolic in character. The amount produced per eight hour day in
Saegertown is around 25,000 gallons.
The waste treatment plant (1), (2) combines a number of unit
operations in series, each of which has a definite function. Table 1
shows their sequence,  relationship and purpose.
Construction of the waste treatment works was practically completed by the middle of February, 1951. The various units were
first checked individually for mechanical performance, any defects
corrected, and the collecting basins filled. Operation was started the
second week of March, 1951. During the period from the middle
of March to May 28, the performance was abnormal, because the
tank car repair and maintenance plant had only a skeleton crew of
105