There were also some reefers with tanks installed in them for handling "beer concentrate" to bottling plants.
Dave H. Painted side goes up. My website : wnbranch.com
The box-tank oil car seems to be one of those war time ideas that was never put to use and, was probably inspired by the cryogenic box-tank cars which first appeared in 1940 as class XT cars. These cars at first glance looked like a 40 foot boxcar with six foot sliding doors. They were built mainly by General American Transportation Co., but also by AC&F and Pressed Steel Car Co for the largest operator, Linde Air Products, as well as Air Reduction Co and National Cylinder Gas. These cars have received coverage in the hobby press with pages 40-77 of the Railway Prototype Cyclopedia (RP CYC) vol.14. This article includes photos, drawings as one would find in a Car Builders Cyclopedia along with information on transporting cryogenics and the companies involved. An article on kit-bashing an XT appeared in the May 1993 issue of Mainline Modeler magazine, followed by a piece in the July 1993 Railmodel Journal which included a roster totaling the number of cars in service during select years. I recall seeing Air Reduction cars regularly, on the L&N Gentilly-Sibert route in the mid 1970s and Linde cars on the SP's Sunset Route across Texas up until the mid 1980s. The XTs faded away, replaced by cryogenic tank cars, models of which were recently imported by Broadway Limited.
If you consider all the ships, tanks, jeeps, planes trucks and airplanes, there was a lot of fuel to move overseas and to domestic airbases, where there was new demand, in excess of the savings from gasoline rationing. You can't drive off Omaha Beach and stop at a Sinclair gas station.
No doubt sabotage was a concern, and they did try to sabotage Horseshoe Curve. and the OSS came up with some wacky ideas, like air powered dart guns.
Henry
COB Potomac & Northern
Shenandoah Valley
Let me start by saying I am ignorant on this topic, but is it possible that using boxcars as tank cars was camoflage against sabatoge?
Just as there are cars which externally look like boxcars but have been classified as covered hoppers, so have there been cars which look like boxcars (and/or once were boxcars) but were classified as tank cars.
The AAR classification was "XT." Several examples are shown, in color, pages 122 to 128 of the Morning Sun Tank Car Color Guide vol 1 by James Kinkaid.
Interestingly some of the cars shown are Linde -- industrial gasses and liquified gasses, and one car was acquired in 1943 from General American.
So while the car shown in the link was pretty clearly a war emergency compromise (and few if any automobiles were being shipped so double door auto cars were available for repurposing) to ship highly strategic petroleum products, it might just be that those cars were themselves re purposed after the war but retained the tanks. Or it might be that many XT class cars were built in the 40s. Linde also had cars in the XT class built in the 50s - so, not converted but class XT from day one .
I remember seeing those Linde/Union Carbide cars in the 1960s but never guessed they were really tank cars. They were so plentiful I had a Linde industry on my layout - my first and worst scratchbuilt structure.
Dave Nelson
Looks like a 1943 date on the far right of the car and the description says from War Information Office 1944.
Once you close the door, it's easy to model, because it looks just like a box car.
ayone know anything about this http://www.loc.gov/pictures/collection/fsa/item/2017696641/ i found photo and referance while searching for something else, googled it but couldent find any referances to it .