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Three Dome Tank Cars

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Posted by SD70Dude on Wednesday, June 13, 2018 6:17 PM

Lucky Lager is the favoured cheap choice of the desperate 'round these parts.

Tried it once, tastes as if it were produced by equines...

Greetings from Alberta

-an Articulate Malcontent

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Posted by Shadow the Cats owner on Wednesday, June 13, 2018 5:56 PM

Most fuel tankers for gas station deliveries are still multi compartments.  They have 4 seperate tanks on them that way they can drop all 3 grades at one time.  Normally the 2 largest of the 4 are filled with 87 octane fuel.  My boss has 2 dedicated fuel tankers for our own fleet tanks. They have 1 8000 gallon tank for diesel on them.  Yes we are starting to haul our own fuel to our terminal.  Why pay someone to haul it when we are already permitted to haul haz-mat anyway.  

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Posted by Enzoamps on Wednesday, June 13, 2018 5:53 PM

In my college days it was Boones Farm and Ripple.

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Posted by 54light15 on Wednesday, June 13, 2018 12:14 PM

Mad Dog 20/20- My sister in law used to shoplift that crap from the 7-11 near where they lived. Horrible stuff but she would drink anything. 

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Posted by tree68 on Wednesday, June 13, 2018 10:14 AM

Local delivery trucks often carried several types of fuel for their various customers.  We had a repurposed fire tanker with three compartments.  We would have liked to cut holes so the three worked together, but it was actually three completely separate tanks welded together to appear as one.  Odds are if we had made the cuts, we would have found multiple leaks...

Multi-commodity ships still exist.  Heard one report in to "Seaway Clayton" on the St Lawrence River some years ago with an interesting collection of liquid cargos, all flammable...

LarryWhistling
Resident Microferroequinologist (at least at my house) 
Everyone goes home; Safety begins with you
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Posted by CSSHEGEWISCH on Wednesday, June 13, 2018 7:32 AM

In a similar vein, a shipping line known as Parcel Tankers operated compartmented tankers that handled multiple commodities in a single hull.

The daily commute is part of everyday life but I get two rides a day out of it. Paul
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Posted by ericsp on Wednesday, June 13, 2018 1:38 AM

The last tank car with domes was probably built in the early 1960s. There are still multiple compartment tank cars, just without domes. They seem to mainly carry lubricants or chemicals. There is a local winery that shipped wine in 3 or 4 compartment tank cars through the late 1990s or early 2000s.
 
Here are some pictures of modern, multiple compartment tank cars I have found on the Internet.
There are also others at http://www.railcarphotos.com but you have to be a member (free) to see the pictures.

"No soup for you!" - Yev Kassem (from Seinfeld)

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Posted by SD70Dude on Tuesday, June 12, 2018 11:23 PM

cx500

It used to be many small towns would have a bulk fuel dealer supplied by rail. Erratic delivery by the railroads meant most of them eventually switched to trucks for delivery from the refineries.  For the railroads, it was easier to lose the business than make an effort to serve a customer in a regular and predictable fashion.

Many of those small towns were also on branch lines that were (at best) marginally profitable, and even those started to lose money as highways took away the mail and merchandise traffic, leaving only grain (which in Canada was a black hole thanks to the Crow Rate) and a few other bulk commodities like fuel.

Losing the business made it that much easier to apply for abandonment.

Gotta love the good ol' days of demarketing, divided compartment tank cars were just collateral damage.

Greetings from Alberta

-an Articulate Malcontent

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Posted by cx500 on Tuesday, June 12, 2018 10:58 PM

The overall capacity of tank cars in the 50-70 ton era was nothing like the much larger tank cars of today.  The number of domes reflected much smaller segregated potions of the tank, each potentially containing a different grade of product.  That smaller volume was easily handled by newer highway tankers.

It used to be many small towns would have a bulk fuel dealer supplied by rail. Erratic delivery by the railroads meant most of them eventually switched to trucks for delivery from the refineries.  For the railroads, it was easier to lose the business than make an effort to serve a customer in a regular and predictable fashion.

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Posted by tree68 on Tuesday, June 12, 2018 9:36 PM
  • According to the Tangent Models website, such cars carried a variety of commondities:
  • Linseed oil
  • Silicate of Soda (made with caustic soda and sand) sometimes referred to as sodium silicate.
  • Printing ink
  • Lubricating Oil
  • Motor Oil
  • Gasoline
  • Tallow
  • Varnishes
  • Acids
  • Solvents
  • Alcohols
  • Acetates
  • Vegetable Oils

Another site noted that the compartments might have three grades of the same commodity, all headed for the same vendor.

As for the wine, when I was a teen I worked in a liquor store.  The local "wine connoisseurs" would come in and but the cheapest wine we had (usually Thunderbird - a white wine going for a whole 69 cents) and a five cent package of red Koolaid, flavor not important.  They now had red wine...

LarryWhistling
Resident Microferroequinologist (at least at my house) 
Everyone goes home; Safety begins with you
My Opinion. Standard Disclaimers Apply. No Expiration Date
Come ride the rails with me!
There's one thing about humility - the moment you think you've got it, you've lost it...

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Posted by MidlandMike on Tuesday, June 12, 2018 9:09 PM

I remember seeing a 3 dome tank car on the NYC Putnam Division in the early 60s.  There was a small chemical plant in suburban New York, but I don't know if that is what it was used for.

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Posted by BaltACD on Tuesday, June 12, 2018 7:20 PM

samfp1943
 
BaltACD
 
caldreamer
When did the railroads stop running the triple dome tank cars?  I have never seen one on any train that I watched or on any video of any train. 

Bigger question - did the 3 dome tanks haul single or multiple commodities. 

  Can't speak to all multi-dome tank cars.  But  a long time ago in a galazy far,far away; when I was in  High School in Memphis.    I had a classmate who's family was in the wine and liquor business.  They received wine in three dome, and other multiple domed tank cars, the capacity was not huge, by any means. The wine was used to package several really, cheap wines. NightTrain, MadDog20/20, are a couple , I can recall, and several others [basicly what would have been referred to as 'head busters' ].  They always seemed to have a couple of those tank cars hooked up out back.    Those three domed cars were probably in dedicated haulage, for food grades.  

The chemical Companies, seemed to favor the single domed cars, and occasionally, two domed cars could be seen around the chemical plants in the area.  But recently, I've seen some larger tank cars, with two domes moving on trains around here on BNSF.

In decades gone by, the quantity being shipped was much smaller than what is the norm today.  The 30K gallon tank car of today was unheard of back in the days of yore.  

In viewing the hookup of those 'tank cars out back'; were they hooked up to more than one hose at a time?  Or was one hose used on 3 separate bottom discharge valves.  One segment of the car could have NightTran, another segment of the car could have MadDog 20/20 and a 3rd segment could be loaded with 2 Buck Chuck.

I can't understand a car having the complex construction for 3 domes but the car only handling a single commodity - it doesn't make economic sense from the car owners perspective.

Never too old to have a happy childhood!

              

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Posted by samfp1943 on Tuesday, June 12, 2018 6:47 PM

BaltACD

 

 
caldreamer
When did the railroads stop running the triple dome tank cars?  I have never seen one on any train that I watched or on any video of any train.

 

Bigger question - did the 3 dome tanks haul single or multiple commodities.

 

  Can't speak to all multi-dome tank cars.  But  a long time ago in a galazy far,far away; when I was in  High School in Memphis.    I had a classmate who's family was in the wine and liquor business.  They received wine in three dome, and other multiple domed tank cars, the capacity was not huge, by any means. The wine was used to package several really, cheap wines. NightTrain, MadDog20/20, are a couple , I can recall, and several others [basicly what would have been referred to as 'head busters' ].  They always seemed to have a couple of those tank cars hooked up out back.    Those three domed cars were probably in dedicated haulage, for food grades. 

The chemical Companies, seemed to favor the single domed cars, and occasionally, two domed cars could be seen around the chemical plants in the area.  But recently, I've seen some larger tank cars, with two domes moving on trains around here on BNSF.

 

 


 

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Posted by BaltACD on Tuesday, June 12, 2018 6:03 PM

caldreamer
When did the railroads stop running the triple dome tank cars?  I have never seen one on any train that I watched or on any video of any train.

Bigger question - did the 3 dome tanks haul single or multiple commodities.

Never too old to have a happy childhood!

              

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Three Dome Tank Cars
Posted by caldreamer on Tuesday, June 12, 2018 4:58 PM

When did the railroads stop running the triple dome tank cars?  I have never seen one on any train that I watched or on any video of any train.

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