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1960s Tank Cars Locos and rolling stock
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Frequent poster 540 posts sanchomurphy Frequent poster 540 posts
sanchomurphy

Hi everyone,

Is there a good list of 1960s era tank cars and their manufacturers. Namely those used for small fuel dealers. 
Great Northern, Northern Pacific, and Burlington Northern 3D Prints and Models
https://www.shapeways.com/shops/sean-p-murphy-designs
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blindog10 Prolific poster 3,329 posts
blindog10

mind reading is not my strong suit.....

Prototype or model? Assuming model, which scale? Scott Chatfield
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musgrovejb Prolific poster 1,733 posts
musgrovejb

Book

I think you are going to have to start with a larger overview of tank car history and narrow your research down from there.  

Model Railroader published a book called “The Model Railroaders Guide to Freight Cars” by Jeff Wilson that had a chapter on tank cars that might be a good start.

Remember to that some tank cars used in the 1960s may have been manufactured before that decade.  

Also, “what type of fuel?”  LPG, gasoline, etc....?

Joe

Modeling Missouri Pacific Railroad's Central Division, Fort Smith, Arkansas

https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLENIMVXBDQCrKbhMvsed6kBC8p40GwtxQ

 
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sanchomurphy Frequent poster 540 posts
sanchomurphy

Specificity

Maybe I should have been more specific, I was talking prototype and HO model counterparts. LPG, diesel, and fuel oil namely. Anhydrous ammonia could also be on there, although I don't know when it came into widespread use on farms.

I was looking for online sources, but I will see if I can get that book Joe. 
Great Northern, Northern Pacific, and Burlington Northern 3D Prints and Models
https://www.shapeways.com/shops/sean-p-murphy-designs
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blindog10 Prolific poster 3,329 posts
blindog10

smaller non-pressure tanks

Small-town fuel dealers, generally called "bulk plants" in the day, usually only handled liquid fuels and lubricants. They typically had several storage tanks for the fuel products they carried, and those tanks were not much larger than a tank car, which until the '60s was rarely larger than 10,000 gallons. Since they were expected to unload the tank car promptly, they didn't want larger cars. So they continued to be served by the large fleet of 8,000 and 10,000 gallon uninsulated non-pressure riveted tanks built between 1917 and 1950, supplemented by a small number of new welded tanks (10,000 and 12,000 gallons) built starting in 1949. LPG (mostly propane) became a common rail commodity in the late '30s and a fair number of welded 11,000 gallon pressure tanks were built between 1940 and the early '50s to haul it. Because LPG needs special tanks and unloading pipes, the unloading sites were usually separate from bulk plants. The same pressure tanks could be used for anhydrous ammonia, but AA was usually shipped to grain coops and farm suppliers, not bulk plants. So you've got three different destinations for your layout, not one. Add to this the fact that most bulk plants were allied to one refiner/marketer of oil products, so most decent-sized towns had two or three bulk plants. Many towns in South Dakota (where I model) had at least a Standard Oil plant and a Texaco plant, with some also having a Continental or Sinclair plant. Now in some cases these bulk plants were all on the same spur or side track, and it might have been an extension of the house track (by the depot) or the elevator track. A Standard Oil bulk plant would be served almost entirely by plain black UTLX tanks. Period. UTLX (Union Tank Car Line) had been created by Standard Oil back in the late 1800s, and the "baby Standards" (after the 1911 breakup of the Standard Oil Trust) kept using them. The baby Standards were allocated specific geographic areas so which one(s) served your area is something you'll have to research. Since almost every bit of America was served by one or more baby Standards, UTLX tanks were seen _everywhere._ The other refiners and marketers owned or leased their own tank cars, many of them with large lettering, and supplemented those cars with plain black cars leased from GATX, NATX, and SHPX. You have a lot of choices ahead of you. There have been a fair number of tank car models in HO over the years. Some usable, but until recent years most had obvious flaws. The newer generation of models, starting with the Intermountain models, have changed that. Unfortunately, we've traded flawed models for fragile ones. Which you prefer is your choice. I covered the various prototypes for most of the HO models of pre-1960 tank cars in a post a couple months ago. I think it was in one of Jim Six's threads. Scott Chatfield
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blindog10 Prolific poster 3,329 posts
blindog10

an earlier post of mine

About the Intermountain, Proto:2000, and Red Caboose tank cars can be found on this page: https://model-railroad-hobbyist.com/node/35302?page=3 Scott Chatfield
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