ATSFGuyNEW or BLT numbers in the 20's and 30's. Are those dates correct for those cars?
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Yes, the Athearn 40 footish tank cars represent older tank cars from the steam era.
-Kevin
Living the dream.
I noticed that many athearn single/three dome, and walthers 10,000 tankers have built dates that say NEW or BLT numbers in the 20's and 30's.
Are those dates correct for those cars?
riogrande5761 Doughless I would think anything with a build date before or during your era, but before the addition of conspicuity stripes would be fair game for a 1980's based layout. I used to be planning a 1980's layout so most of the tank cars I bought fit that range. However, in the past 5 years so so, I've back dated to late 1970's which appears to have put many of my tank cars "out of era". Many of them have 3 panel COTS which puts them at 1982 or later, although some have build dates of 78 or 79 or 80 even with the 3 panel COTS. In some cases I could back date them the build date with 2-panel COTS decals. In other cases, other markings may place the models well into the mid 80's possibly.
Doughless I would think anything with a build date before or during your era, but before the addition of conspicuity stripes would be fair game for a 1980's based layout.
I would think anything with a build date before or during your era, but before the addition of conspicuity stripes would be fair game for a 1980's based layout.
I used to be planning a 1980's layout so most of the tank cars I bought fit that range. However, in the past 5 years so so, I've back dated to late 1970's which appears to have put many of my tank cars "out of era".
Many of them have 3 panel COTS which puts them at 1982 or later, although some have build dates of 78 or 79 or 80 even with the 3 panel COTS. In some cases I could back date them the build date with 2-panel COTS decals. In other cases, other markings may place the models well into the mid 80's possibly.
I see more clearly the problem. Going backward in era is different than going forward. Its tough to have a marking on a car that was never there, as oppossed to having a few cars that had lingering markings past a certain date because they didn't get to the paint shop in a timely manner. Of course, going way far forward in era and a lot of the older markings would have been removed or changed.
- Douglas
Rio Grande. The Action Road - Focus 1977-1983
I assume researching photographs for a specific car would provide some verification that a model was produced accurately, and no existing photograph of the specific model would provide some peace of mind that the above formula would work.
Just as an aside, the AAR and chemical companies finished the new design of a hazmat tank car (for the really nasty stuff like chlorine). They built test cars and the one of the major western railroads agreed to test it. They loaded it with water and set it up the billing in the computer to run in a big loop around the western United States. Every month it put on years of mileage, over a year it accumulated more miles than an average car travels in decades.
Dave H. Painted side goes up. My website : wnbranch.com
Part of the problem is that some of the signage on a tank car is commodity specifc and not necessarily era specific. A Type 105 car built in 1970 and one built in 2000 might have a Chemtrec sign because they haul hazmat but a type 105 built in 1990 might not because it hauls corn syrup or something non-hazmat.
A lot of the signage on a car is driven by Federal regulations.
cv_acrCOTS consolidated stencils and reflective markings are good general era markers for any cars
Understood and have those dates down well, but there are markings more specific to tank cars I was trying to get a handle on. Not only the 1-800 and yellow Chemtrec 800 number markings but DOT as well.
COTS consolidated stencils and reflective markings are good general era markers for any cars, some compiled info here in a post on my blog site.
I'd like to pull a bit more together on tank car specific labelling from this thread and other sources and do another similar consolidated posting about tank car labelling, to bottle it all up as a resource, and especially so I can remember it all myself!
Chris van der Heide
My Algoma Central Railway Modeling Blog
The general info on the tank car types is useful, but within them, some are lettered/marked for later time frames - thats the trick.
Here's an earlier thread on tank cars, where Chutton01 post a list for tank cars from the late 70's, from another forum:
http://cs.trains.com/mrr/f/13/t/248488.aspx
Maybe something in there you can use.
Mike.
My You Tube
I probably know the least about tank cars and am trying to figure out where many of the models fit in the time-line.
Build/re-weight dates give some info assuming you can even see them. There are COTS/stencils as well.
What about 1-800 numbers and later yellow 1-800 chemtrec stickers? Other markings specific to tank cars?
I'm trying to figure out which models are good for mainly the 1978/89 time frame.