This one turned up at the Concord NH train show. No makers name anywhere on the outside or the bottom. Note the lack of reporting marks and data. I need some black decals for that, unfortunately all my data decals are white. Previous owner had converted to knuckle couplers, but I had to redo that work. He had also put roller bearing trucks under it, and I had to replace them with friction bearing trucks from my junk box.
This one is an ordinary Athearn kit that I picked up a while ago over at Hartmann's in Intervale. I made a special trip to stock up after learning that Athearn was discontinuing the blue box kits. Other than giving the under carriage a coat of dark gray auto primer, and adding the hazmat placard, it's stock.
That's two more oil company tank cars added to my fleet. I think I have Texaco and Mobil pretty well covered. Now for some Shell and Gulf cars.
David Starr www.newsnorthwoods.blogspot.com
That first one looks like either a LifeLike or Tyco car, although the ladder is finer than the ones originally used on either of those cars. At one time, I think that the LifeLike cars were clones of the old Varney cars, but that one is longer and of a smaller diameter than the Varney version.
Here's an original Varney car, with some updated details:
This one's a Varney tank (picked up free at a train show). I shortened it by about 2', then mounted it on a Tichy underframe. Decals are from Black Cat:
Another of my favourites is the older Walthers car (pre-Proto2000). With a few added details, it's a nicely-proportioned car. While it's inexpensive, I haven't been able to find any other than this one:
This Athearn Blue Box car was purchased recently - two bucks, new and unbuilt in the box. I added a few details and backdated it to better suit my late-'30s era layout. Lettering is a combination of dry transfers and Champ decals:
A while back, I picked up several Proto2000 kits at a very reasonable price - they were obscure roadnames and it seems that no one was interested in the kits, as the r-t-r versions had recently been released. Part of the reason for that seemed to be the difficulty in installing plastic grab irons, but I replace them with metal ones anyway - much easier to make and install, and better looking, too. The lettering is dry transfers from C-D-S:
Wayne
We had a similar thread to this earlier this year or late last year, and I was one who did not have many tank cars in the fleet, I have added a few as shown below.
Like Wayne I found some of these old Walthers Tank Cars (Probably ex Train-Miniature) and I did one in the Texaco scheme with Champ Decals.
This is a more modern 14000 Gal Kaolin Tank Car, lettered with Islington Station Products decals.
An Atlas 17600 Gal Corn Syrup Tank Car, lettered with Islington Station Products decals.
An Atlas 23500 Gal Oil Tank Car, lettered with Highball Graphics Decals.
Wayne, I will have to find my old Gilbert Tank car and see how it compares with an old Life-Like.
Rick J
Rule 1: This is my railroad.
Rule 2: I make the rules.
Rule 3: Illuminating discussion of prototype history, equipment and operating practices is always welcome, but in the event of visitor-perceived anacronisms, detail descrepancies or operating errors, consult RULE 1!
dstarr, what's obviously missing is a fleet of Sinclair Oil cars, what were you thinking?
docwayne: Those Royalite/ Premier tanks have registration from Imperial Oil (IOX) I used to buy Royalite gas in Western Canada, was this company connected to Imperial Oil?
tatans dstarr, what's obviously missing is a fleet of Sinclair Oil cars, what were you thinking?
Help me out, post a pix of a Sinclair Oil car. I don't remember what color they were painted or what the Sinclair logo looked like. Surely they didn't use that green dinosaur they used on gas stations.
dstarr tatans dstarr, what's obviously missing is a fleet of Sinclair Oil cars, what were you thinking? Help me out, post a pix of a Sinclair Oil car. I don't remember what color they were painted or what the Sinclair logo looked like. Surely they didn't use that green dinosaur they used on gas stations.
Evidently, Royalite was a subsidiary of Imperial Oil, which in turn was the Canadian subsidiary of Standard Oil. When lettering the car, I had assumed that Royalite was a brand name belonging to Imperial Oil but a quick google search yielded this brief history.
I did two cars in that paint scheme...
...thinking that they'd be fairly unique, as it's an "interesting" experience applying dry transfers to tank cars. Imagine my surprise, on a subsequent trip to the same LHS, to discover the same (or a very similar) lettering scheme on the r-t-r version of the same car.
alco's forever!!!!! Majoring in HO scale Minorig in O scale:)
Thread is about tank cars, how could you hijack it by talking about them? =P
I think for most including myself, tank cars tend to look extreemly utilitarian and ordinary, and to use a 1960's term, not very "sexy" among the variety of freight cars. Like most however, I do want to imitate reality so when I look at bridge traffic across the Rocky Mountains in Colorado, there was usually a healthy does of tank car traffic. So I have collected a modest fleet of tank cars including around 4 kaolin (clay slurry) cars, 3 Atlas 33K propane, 5 Walthesr 33k propane, and a mixture of Walthers and Atlas 26k and16k gallon oil and chemical tank cars. Most of my tank cars relfect what I've seen, and are plain jane, with just reporting marks.
Rio Grande. The Action Road - Focus 1977-1983
Nice finds, David!
I have been wanting to add some tank cars to the SLOW. They would have to ones used in Interchange Service in 1925 or before. Probably would be used to haul petroleum products...
Any suggestions?
73
Ray Seneca Lake, Ontario, and Western R.R. (S.L.O.&W.) in HO
We'll get there sooner or later!
Ted Cullota had an article on essential tank cars in RMC a while ago. He said the riveted "type 21" cars in 8000 and 10000 gallon sizes were first built back in 1917 and stayed in service thru the 1950's. I believe my two Texaco cars would be appropriate anytime between 1917 and 1960. I surely remember seeing long strings of 'em from the Jersey Turnpike thru out the 1950's. Mostly single dome. Not sure how it is, but the numbers of double and triple dome model tank cars far exceeds the number of such cars I ever saw on tracks.
Not sure of the service area of the S.L.O. & W, but unless it is a petroleum producing area, the tank cars would be hauling refined fuels, gasoline, kerosine, furnace oil. I don't believe the Canadians did much oil drilling until after WWII.
Evolution (and de-evolution?) of my tank car fleet
I have 46 tank cars in my N scale fleet but I have not acquired any in the last six years because I have a lesser need for tank cars on my current layout.
For some 20 years, I operated a 3x7 foot N scale layout that represented a small courthouse square town in the piney woods of East Texas. I had only 4 places a tank car might be spotted on the modeled part of the layout.
A local bulk oil dealer got a tank from Phillips 66 every few days.
A wood preservation plant warranted modeling a special Koppers Chamical tankcar for delivery of coal tar creosote.
A lumber mill just outside of town had its own shortline railroad and a fleet of trucks and other logging equipment, justifying buying diesel fuel by the carload from a refinery.
A peanut butter plant also got an occasional delivery of corn syrup. I used an 3-compartment UTLX TM tankcar for that shipment.
Despite the sparse local liquid traffic, the layout also had a roundy-round route from staging that modeled a Santa Fe secondary mainline that connected the petrochemical centers of Beaumont and Port Arthur with the rest of Texas, including major refinery of Gulf, Texaco and Magnolia.
So I had name-brand tankcars moving petroleum. Refineries also shipped anhydrous ammonia to be used in fertilizer in a SHPX tank, LP gas in a UTLX tank. They received tetraethyl lead antiknock compound in a tankcar lettered for Ethyl Corporation. I wanted to model a special acid tankcar for delivery of sulfuric acid used in refineries, but never got to that project. The Texas-Louisiana border area had paper mills. They received caustic soda in a PPG tankcar, and a car owned by A E. Staley delivered custom engineered starch to stiffen corrugated cardboard. Lignosulfite, a paper mill byproduct used as an dispersant agent for concrete mixing was shipped out in a Protex car. A Hooker Chemical car shipped chlorine both for industrial and municipal utility use. So I had plenty of through tankcar traffic.
My East Texas layout was envisioned as part of an eventual giant house-sized “dream layout,” to be built when and if I ever won the lottery.
I wanted tankcars to represent the Texas brand names of national oil companies. Buying commercial models and lettering others got me cars for:
Conoco
Gulf (and Warren Petroleum, owned by Gulf)
Magnolia
Phillips 66
Shell
Sinclair
Texaco
A few of them-
I was never able to acquire one for Humble/ Esso.
My big layout would have an engine terminal, so I lettered a car for Santa Fe company service.
I cobbled a boxcar into a Linde box-tank for industrial gases
and I got a car already factory-lettered for National Cylinder Gas.
While I acquired cars—a DuPont fertilizer tank, a Celanese tank for unspecified “chemicals,” a TM tank for edible oil, a Heinz vinegar tankcar and lots more, I never won the lottery. Maybe because I spent money on trains and not lottery tickets.
I gave up on the giant layout, although I did build the Navy blimp base, which gave me a place to run helium tank cars and US Navy tanks for aviation gasoline.
My layout currently under construction has less place for tankcars. It is based on Galveston, an island seaport at the end of the line with no through traffic.
Texas City, on the bay ten miles from Galveston is the major oil port and petrochemical center.
Galveston specializes in dry bulk cargoes, with little in the way of local process industries. I can relocate my Phillips 66 bulk oil dealer, and I can imagine there are bulk dealers for other brands on a backstage spur behind the big export grain elevator, a place to represent unmodeled industries. I will have an engine terminal that will need fuel deliveries. I can imagine the Navy blimp base onto the backstage spur. But in all, I will have a lot less place for tankcar traffic.
I built up this wine tank car by using a Athearn chemical tank car kit and casting new domes from a very old metal tank car dome that I had in my parts box. Still have to more to make two more cars.