OK, opened up an ancient box and found my AHM ThermIce (Publicker Industries) Insulated Tank Car and Insulted Box Car from the late Sixties. Which got me to thinking, has anyone ever seen or - better yet - have photos of their prototypes? Publicker was a Philadelphia company and so was AHM, so did Bernie Paul base the cars on what he had seen (they would have stood out in seas of red box cars and black tankers), or was he imbibing some of Publicker's finest (they ran a major distillery) and dreamed them up? Second, what industries would use solid and liquid CO2 (dry Ice)?
Here's a Thermice Carbon Dioxide car. Is it the same company?
www.boxcars.us/Boxcars_A_M/US-UZ/pages/image066.html
ADM also has carbon dioxide tank cars. I believe it's a byproduct of certain corn milling processes.
Jeff
Bernie Paul was not in violation of rule G when he had AHM produce the Thermice cars, although he did take some liberties as to prototype fidelity. Bernie applied Thermice graphics to a Pullman-Standard car which seems to be very scarce in 1:1 scale. There is a picture of a Thermice 40 foot, plug door dry ice reefer built by Fruit Growers Express bearing reporting marks of TICX 8907, on page 125 of Morning Sun's "X-Car Color Guide Volume 4: OCPX-TKCX".
A Thermice Liquid CO2 tank car that doesn't exactly match Bernies model appears on page 87 of Morning Sun's "Tank Car Color Guide Volume 1: Cars with Full Center Sills".
This car is under UTLX reporting marks as their 82099, a 16,500 gallon car. As far as users of CO2, a web search will provide that information but one user that comes to mind would be the field of medicine and, medical research.
My father worked for a Publiker subsidiary. When he became a manger we were invited to tour the plant in south Philadelphia, which e did. They had tank cars for CO2 and boxcars for dry ice (solid CO2). Saw them both when we were there. They also were the larest producer of alchol in US at the time. FYI: Ethyl alcohol comes in 3 forms. Once through the distilling procewsw is industrial alcohol which still has a lot of impurities. Used for cleaning, etc. Two pot alcohol (twice through the distilling process is used as a solvent and three pot is pure grin alcohl (good for human consumption). It also goe through an activated charcoal tower to ensure tht all impuities ar removed.
Caldreamer
I was just on the Microscale decals website and saw their 87-1507 decal set which includes Thermice lettering for a dry ice reefer with TICX reporting marks, much like that on the old AHM car.