Tank Car Valves – Comparing Reliability, Manufacturing, Value & On-Going Support

Tank Car Valves – Rankings…

How good is your tank car valve? Just because you’ve not had any problems, are you using the best possible valves available to you?

What is your total cost of ownership, including paying more upfront for an inferior valve and then struggling to service it?

The Association of American Railroad (AAR) neither approves or recommends one manufacturer over another. Similarly, it does not have any testing requirements to compare performance. While there is no question tank car valves do see tough environments, the actual conditions (pressure & temperature) they see, are far from extreme. As such some tank car valve manufacturers only build their valves to meet these limits. But not all….

Best of the Best - Safest, longest lasting and easiest to use  -

Jamesbury (Neles), Rego & Fort Vale were making valves long before they entered the Tank Car market. Their valves are designed to actuate thousands of times a year, under much severer and extreme conditions. It is this same engineering and technology-packed designs we see on their tank car valves. It is also why these manufacturers offer the longest and most robust warranties vs the standard 1 year offered by all others.

First hand answers -

Visiting your manufacturers is easily the most eye-opening opportunity to understand the differences between one manufacturer and another. Some are world-class facilities, others - upscale machine shops. How many patents does your valve manufacturers own? What innovative technologies do they incorporate? Do they adhere to recognized industrial quality processes, affiliations or any other international standards? Does your valve manufacturer have its own foundry, metrology labs, material engineers, R&D engineers or testing labs?Include examples…

Innovation / what makes your valve special…

Fort Vale’s - combination pressure relief valve & vaccum relief valve used on ISO containers. (not ARR appoved)

Are you demanding the best for your fleet?  Safety is the #1 priority and the biggest cost to remedy. It is therefore important to understand how old your valve design is, when it last updated, what features and benefits make it special and better than its competitors.

Below are a few examples of why Jamesbury, Rego and Fort Vale are consistently regarded as the leaders in our industry:

Ball Valves - Jamesbury’s valve come with a flexible lip seal which has been life-cycled over 700,000 times, it’s next best competitor only managed 70,000 cycles. Each valve comes with lived-loaded stems (mitigates the need for adjustments) and API-607 Fire-Tite as standard.

Angle Valves - Rego’s angle valves come with their patented chevron stem packing that never require adjustment. The stem also features an ACME thread, two-piece body design (for easier repair) and Garlock seals. While it also comes with a 10-year warranty, we still know of valves operating after more than 30 years.

Pressure Relief Valves - Fort Vales PRV’s are 100% stainless steel, externally mounted and low profile. Nevertheless, these very elegantly engineered valves discharge on average 700% more SCFMs than its competitors. Their success has recently garnered a copy or two from competitors.

Inventory / In-Field Assistance-

TransQuip - Emergency Response Valve Training

If none of the above matters to you and you choose to pick your valves based on past experiences or existing relationships, the next question to consider is after-sales service. Does your valve manufacturer keep your valves in inventory? How long do your cars have to wait for a valve in the event of an emergency or routine requalification’s? How much do these delays cost? If something goes wrong in the field and the MRU can’t fix it, who do you call to help? Is there any help?

Here’s the difference. Both Jamesbury, Rego and Fort Vale have partnered with TransQuip to be their exclusive supplier. As such, TransQuip maintains a vast inventory of all standard products to ensure same day delivery. TransQuip also works with Car Builders, Lessors and Shippers to pre-order and at their own cost inventory service equipment until needed. When needed, it’s sales team and engineer travel throughout North America to train personnel (repair/ loading/ emergency response) on their service equipment as well as help resolve any issues that may arise.

Nothing to hide -

Have you ever been invited to your valve manufacturers facility? If not, why not? Do they have something to hide? There are half a dozen manufacturers that supply service components for Tank Cars. Most are located in the USA, including Jamesbury in Shrewsbury MA and Rego in Elon NC. Fort Vale is located near Manchester, England. All three welcome the opportunity to host you and showcase all they do and offer. If this is something you are interested in doing, contact your TransQuip representative to organize/ coordinate. Similarly, I would highly recommend visiting all the manufacturers you use or considering using.

Next Steps -

Going forward; costs will rise and regulations will tighten. Regulators are pushing to chart and eventually publish the effectiveness and reliability of all service equipment. Inflation will push Shippers to seek greater cost efficiencies. Combined in all this, you then need to ask yourself, how supportive have my vendors been? How interested are they in my success and how willing are they to help me when I most need it?

For more information on Jamesbury, Rego & Fort Vale contact your local TransQuip representative.

For more in-depth answer tank car standards click:-  (https://www.transquip.com/articles/2020/4/8/aar-approved-valves-minimal-standards-competitor-comparisons)