These cars can be seen at
http://www.ho-scaletrains.net/ahmhoscalefreightcars/id57.html
My uncle worked for US Steel in the 1960s and was involved in the development and testing of these cars, of which at least several were built and used for hauling pitch from Pittsburgh to Canada. I would like to upgrade and repaint an AHM model for this service, but I'd like to locate prototype photos if possible. Does anyone have any info on prototype reporting marks and number series for the AHM car design?
I will greatly appreciate info that's to the point -- yes, I'm aware of the ORER, technical and historical groups, Yahoo groups, etc etc etc.
I have that very model in that same DuPont paint scheme (and an older and smaller AHM tank car also in the two tone green DuPont paint scheme).
I had assumed it was mostly a flight of fancy of the manufacturer but there is a photo in my 1966 Car and Locomotive Builder's Cyclopedia of a similar car, in that it has the small cylinder tank on top and the box down below (somewhat differing in detail from the model but close and presumably easily made more accurate). It is called the Union Tank Car 10,000 gallon "Unitemp" car with in-transit heating equipment. The "new" date (I cannot see a Blt date in the photo) is 11-62. CAPY is 173000 and LTWT is 77600 if I am squinting correctly. The AHM model's numbers are 173,000 and 77,000. Maybe they squint differently than i do for LTWT.
The number of the car in the photo, which may well have been a demonstrator car, is UTLX 85785 ( my model is numbered UTLX 85780). I am not the most skilled guy in reading an ORER but my 1967 Equipment Register shows cars of various capacities in the UTLX 85700 to 85796 series of cars, with 21 cars in the 10,000 lbs capacity category.
It is NOT included by the way in my 1970 Cyclopedia so UTLX must have given up on the car by then as a product offering.
This archived article in the Chicago Trib suggests that higher capacity Unitemps were built or planned (it has no photo) up to 18,000 gal. I think the AHM model could well be of a model of a car of higher capacity than 10,000 but it is certainly similar to the photo.
http://archives.chicagotribune.com/1963/05/19/page/107/article/new-tank-car-has-automatic-heat-system
I have been unable to find an online photo of the car that I can link for you. I realize it is not helpful to say I have a photo in a book if you don't have the book, but if you can track down a 1966 Car Builder's Cyclopedia you'll see the same photo I am looking at, page 246.
Amended post - whether DuPont actually leased such UTLX cars and painted them in their two tone green paint scheme (which was a real paint scheme for them) I do not know. But it cannot be ruled out.
Dave Nelson
John, I have a few of these I was going to give up at a rumage sale this spring, as I have done a lot of searching, and have never come across the prototype for this car.
Hopeful some one in here will help us both.
I was juct checking out your blogs. Nice !
Mike.
EDIT: Thanks Dave, I also will do some research. I had thought it was some type of European thing, with the little tank on the top.
My You Tube
John,
I found a source for a photo of one of these. PM me, and I will forward the info.
For some reason, at this time I'm not seeing a PM option at my end.
Ed
It is a hoot that they would offer the cars painted up as if hauling commodities that would never travel in that type of car.
Charlie
Many thanks for the very helpful responses. On one hand, my uncle has always been doubtful that the design lasted very long, as what he worked on involved a propane-fired engine and heater and a highly flammable cargo of coal tar pitch. He rode along on tests and was always conscious that these cars were, as he put it, "rolling bombs". On the other hand, there are still pitch cars with in-transit heaters in service, such as a CGTX series 18450-18499 -- too far away in appearance from the AHM car,although an internal combustion engine, fan, and heater seem to be still involved.
I found a patent filed by US Steel for the heating system on these cars at
http://www.google.com/patents/US3389697
I sent the info, as requested.
If you scroll to the bottom of my blog post at http://modelrrmisc.blogspot.com/2016/03/the-joy-of-ahm.html
you'll find the photo Ed pointed me to, plus a photo of the AHM model I found at a swap and mean to upgrade. Old AHM cars can be a neglected source of fun rolling stock projects.
Thanks, Ed!
Thanks for sharing, John. That is excellent. All of the searching I have been doing, on and off for a couple of years, and that ad never turned up.
I look at the few of those AHM cars that I have in a whole new light! as they did actually excist.
Excellent, glad to see that ad in your blog. As you can see there is a pipe, missing on the model but easy to add, that runs from the cylindrical tank on the top to the box down below. Less obvious in the ad photograph, but more clear from the 1966 Car and Locomotive Cyclopedia picture, is that there is also other piping or venting that comes out of the box down below. I have not figured out yet how I am going to model that aspect.
Thus, it would still be worth your while to track down a 1966 Car Builder's Cyclopedia if you want to do just a bit more detail improvement on the AHM original.
Guys: it appears we have created a small and VERY select little Special Interest Group for these unusual tank cars. Should we have dues and an annual convention?
JOHN BRUCE III.....My uncle worked for US Steel in the 1960s and was involved in the development and testing of these cars, of which at least several were built and used for hauling pitch from Pittsburgh to Canada.....
It's difficult to imagine why we would have been importing coal tar, as there's an enormous blob of it sitting in the bottom of Hamilton Harbour, a by-product of our own steel-making.It's known locally as Randle Reef, in honour of a tugboat captain who apparently grounded on it regularly.There have been various discussions on cleaning it up for years, but the current plan is to encase it with steel pilings and then fill in with earth on top.
Who knows? Perhaps the stuff was being shipped here simply for disposal. In a somewhat odd twist, that steel plant is now owned by U.S. Steel, and is in receivership.
Wayne
Good one Dave, . I saved the ones I have, simply because the car looked like a more "modern" tank, so I had always intended to get rid of the little tank and rebuild it as a modern tank car, since my fleet is lacking tankers, and the RTR cars are about $40. But now, maybe not.
This morning, after looking at John's post, I went down and drug out my "out of service" ( or, junk, as my sweet wife refers to it) car storage box, and found 5 of them.
dknelson Guys: it appears we have created a small and VERY select little Special Interest Group for these unusual tank cars. Should we have dues and an annual convention?
It appears I am now the archivist for this SIG, as I just bought the ad.
I'm afraid I spent the SIG's entire acquisition budget for the year on this article, but I am also sure you all will agree with me that it's worth it. I just hope nothing quite as expensive comes up for awhile, as our treasury is a bit low, now.
Is it too early to think about establishing a building fund for construction of a structure to store what will likely become the world's foremost repository on the subject?
Besides the obvious physical storage area, we will also need a reading room, a conference room, a staff lounge, a parking garage, and administrative offices.
I suspect there are or were loads other than coal tar pitch that could benefit from being shipped "warm" and thus in a liquid state, so I don't assume that was the only load for these cars. It was the only one mentioned in the old Trib article, but the ad Ed found suggests that Union Tank Car was aiming at any temperture sensitive commodities.
As soon as our luxurious office complex is finished, our SIG's highly paid professional research staff should get right on that.
My ulterior motive is that I would prefer not to have to strip and repaint/letter my car, even though a DuPont tank car would more likely have DUPX reporting marks than UTLX. Also it is unlike that anhydrous ammonia would need to be shipped warm. Fortunately the good folks at AHM/Roco spelled it Anhidrous so I'll need to remove at least that part of the lettering anyway.
The lettering on all those 1960s-70s AHM cars was colorful and fun. It was clearly aimed at the train set market, but that shouldn't be a reason for people to get all snooty about these things. The prototype modeler poobahs seem to hate the AHM 6-dome tanker for what it is no matter what, but if you look at the really neat and totally non-prototype lettering on AHM versions of the car, you've got to think they're tempting! Same goes for the in-transit tanks.
Perfect example is my ThermIce, liquid CO2 car. Now liquid CO2 is Dry Ice, so it is NOT something you would heat. However, I have an out, if the lessor got rid of them by 1970, I can assume (it's my railroad) that Publicker Industries got a deal on some large, insulated, fairly new cars, then just shut off the heating appparatus and; to save money, just left it in place rather than remove it. It's my story and I'm sticking to it. The car goes well with my AHM ThermIce 40-foot Insulated Boxcar and ThermIce 11,000 gallon Insulated "Chemical" Tankcar so I have a fleet passing through from ThermIce to its customers - just not sure who would use liquid and solid CO2 on an industrial scale.
Why did AHM pick ThermIce ? ThermIce was apparently part of Publicker Industries http://www.philaplace.org/story/1766/ a major producer of alchohol (I'd like to see THAT tank car...) in Philadelphia. AHM was also located in Philadelphia and I think the eye of its president, Bernie Paul, was drawn to the colorful silver cars among seas of red boxcars and black tanks.
Last, my father was a chemical engineer, and he told me there are many feedstocks and products that need to be heated to flow and their tank cars have steam coils inside the tank with the steam coming from the plant boiler. This was the advantage of in-transit heating. You could unload instantly, rather than waiting for hours for the load to heat up. This means cars can be turned faster and that means fewer cars tieing up your money