Brittanica Online apparently has some stuff on those cars- you need to be a member though.

There is also a book out there on AC&F tank cars - it apparently retailed at $65, so you'll need to be very interested in the topic.

There is also this other link: http://www.hosam.com/aar/tankcar.html

Basically I just fed the Tank Car type into Google and went from there.

You might want to join the Steam Era Yahoo Group, there are lots of experts on older freight cars there.

Bobby Pitts

According to UTLX Tank Car (Union Tank Car) records Steel Riveted cars were built from 1882-1930. During the years 1908-1912 almost all riveted cars were converted to Narrow gauge but the last know riveted cars were owned by the D&RGW and converted by 1956. With the closing of the Oil Refinery in Alamosa that was owned by Lafayette "GRAMPS" Hughs in 1964 the narrow Gauge oil transportation business on the D&RGW came to a Halt and all UTLX tanks cars became Surplus. In 1962 16 of these cars went to the White Pass & Yukon. Then in 1982 when the WP&Y suspended all freight operations these cars were again set aside as surplus until 1982 when Cumbries & Toltec secured them for return to their Colorado narrow Gauge lines.  As far as Standard Gauge Riveted Tank cars, any other Riveted cars not sold to D&RGW Narrow Gauge lines had been scrapped for the war effort in 1943 and the newer 10,000 steel welded car replaced most after the war. the only Tank cars found on standard gauge lines in the U.S.A after 1957 were Welded frame-less Cars.

I got this information from BHI Publications, UTLX construction records, White Pass &Yukon Records and D&RGW RR& Colorado Railroad Library.

From all the research I have done on older freight cars for my RGS narrow Gauge, 1930 was the last year any Riveted Tank cars were built. I hope this is what your looking for.

Dan

Thanks Dan and the rest as well.  Yes, I know about the Signature press SP books on frieight cars and I'm thinking of adding these to my collection.  As I said before, welded tank cars didn't begin to appear until the late forties.  Since I'm modeling the SP around1948, I'm interested in the now OOP Proto 2000 8K and 10K riveted tank cars built prior to 1949. Is this crazy or what?  I know this limits me to very early SP diesels like SW1, S1, and S2, and HH660 in tiger-stripe paint switchers and the F3 and F7 covered wagons in black widow scheme but that's what it was.  When is Walthers going to re-release the Proto 2000 (Roundhouse) tank cars again?

Thanks again ya'll.

George

As far as Roundhouse tank cars you'll need to ask Athearn Models since they own everything Roundhouse. otherwise do like I did and E-Bay is where I got 14 of the 6000 gallon cars.

Dan

Interestingly enough welding wasn't a common building technique on a large scale until World War II made it necessary in order to produce the number of ships and vehicles the production effort required to support the US and Allied military, Towards the end of the war, the techniques were applied to other things as well and tank cars were one of them.

Irv

Ed Kaminski's AC&F Tank Car book is the best resource to use in understanding the development of tank cars and the American Car & Foundry tank car line. This book may be available through inter-library loan, which would be a great way to review the content to determine if it is worth your resources. Prototype tank car details can be elusive and only now are we beginning to understand the variety of builders and products that were produced between 1900-1960. With this increase in prototype knowledge comes some well done HO scale tank cars kits.

Sunshine Models has several resin kits that produce accurate X-3 UTLX cars of varying gallonage as well as an insulated version. These are not beginner kits but build into fine and accurate models. A list of models is available on line. Scroll down to the UTLX entry to access links for more details.

Southern Car & Foundry produces HO scale resin kits following GATX tank car prototypes. Again, these are advance kits build into fine and acuurate models.

Speedwitch Media offers a conversion kit to produce a Pressed Steel Car Company 8000 gallon tank car.

The Proto2000 AC&F Type 21 cars are fine models that are readily available. It is great that there are a few different gallon capacities now available, as well as an insulated version. One point I learned from the AC&F book is that tank cars were often leased, which could be for short periods of time. Some tank car painting and lettering styles may only be valid for specific windows of time. If your modeling is following a specific era, this may have an impact.

The Intermountain Type 27 cars represent a prototype that had a variety of users, but I understand there may have been many models painted and lettered for companies that did not use this type of car.

Atlas released an 11,000 gallon ICC 103 insulated car in HO scale. These were originally used in propane service. The models have some heavy details, but the tank is well done.

That summarizes the accurate HO scale models currently on the market. It is unfortunate that some plastic HO scale tank car kits that have been available for a few decades do not accurately follow prototypes. I am not as familiar with the products of other scales.

 Eric

Tank Cars: the book can be found at Railpub.com        http://railpub.com/

in the used & out of print book section click on pdf catalog then click railroad books and after pdf loads scroll down to:TANK CARS FROM AMERICAN CAR & FOUNDRY, 1865-1955 – Kaminski, 2003, Signature Press, 264p, HD, new, $59. thats $10.00 cheeper than the new one and knowing railpub as I do it should look like new most of their books even when said to be poor used condition are in very good condition. Just avoid the extreemly poor to bad torn and missing pages catagory.

DAN

Thank you gentlemen.  I appreciate all your input.  Not having checked out the recent suggestions, I've been searching ebay for tank cars and as you know, I have to be careful buying specific tank cars even if they are type 21, 27, or 30 and even if they were built in years before 1948.  It appears that some of these models have information displayed on the sides of the tanks that they were inspected or such much later.  That wouldn't work very well if I wanted to be accurate.

Again, thanks everyone for the info.  It appears that I still have much research to do.

George

Southern Pacific R.R.  -  L.A. General Shops - 1948

You can probably get a letter set from Microscale in the right font, and simply paint out the date and restencil it for an earlier date.