Phillips 66 on The East Coast?

[NYSW3614]

Was there any kind of presence of Phillips in the Northeastern US in the 1950s?  Their gas stations seem to have been primarily in the mid-west/west.  Trying to see if an Intermountain tank car for Phillips belongs on a NE US layout.

Thank you!

Joshua

[dti406]

At one time Phillips 66 served all 50 states but pulled out of the Northeast in 1972 and the West coast a few years later. They now just serve the Southwest and Midwest.

Rick Jesionowski

[Christian]

If you move beyond retail gasoline, Phillips in the fifties was a major player in aviation fuel carried over after WWII. There was/is/are also Phillips Chemicals. Phillips was an early player in North Sea oil imports. But, I think, that was in the sixties. Nevertheless, A Phillips tank car in the Northeast in the fifties really doesn't call for much modeler's license.

[wagnersteve]

I grew up in Philadelphia and one of its suburbs from shortly after World War II until the 1960s, did my undergraduate work in northeastern Ohio 1964-1968 and then moved to the Boston area; I've lived in Massachusetts since but have been in all states as far south as North Carolina and Tennessee, plus Texas, nearly all of the Midwest east of the Dakotas and Nebraska, plus Washington State, Oregon, California and Nevada. I don't remember seeing ANY Phillips 66 gas stations sin the Northeast until VERY recent years; I'm shocked that what had been a Sunoco station in Acton, MA is now Phillips 66.

Phillips 66 was based in Bartlesville, Oklahoma. One of my college classmates was the daughter of an executive of that firm there. The 66 refers to US 66, for many years the main highway from Chicago to the Southwestern

The most surprising gas station in the Frankford section of Northeast Philadelphia 1946-1953 was a Richfield station with a blue, yellow and white sign featuring an eagle. That was a Calfiornia-based company that much later merged with Atlantic -- originally the Philadelphia area affiliate of Standard Oil -- and dominated the resulting ARCO.

Tank cars displaying the names of Texaco, Sinclair, Flying A and some other oil companies not based in the Northeast did show up here in the Fifties and Sixtiess. I don't think I ever saw a Deep Rock (Kerr-McGee) tank car there, or Skelly, Continental and some others. Mobilgas and the.red Pegasus (called by Phil Sheridan on his morning radio show in Philly "Sparky, the flying red horse", originally belong to Vacuum Oil Co. in California before its merger quite early -- 1920's, I think -- with Socony (Standard Oil Company of New York) to form Socony Vacuum, later Socony Mobil, later Mobil, which ultimately merged with Esso (standing for Eastern States Standard Oil, originally Standard Oil Company of New Jersey. After John D. Rockefeller's Standard Oil Trust was "busted", most of the successor companies had exclusive rights to use the word Standard in a particular state or states and their affiliates in other states had to use other names. Somehow Esso and Mobilgas stations coexisted in much of the Northeast. I ultimately was able to convince a famous modeler of the New Haven that he shouldn't have a sign with Standard with a torch at a pier on his layout that was supposed to represent part of Connecticut. That belonged to Standard of Indiana, which had rights to Standard in much of the MIdwest west of Ohio but was Amoco or American elsewhere. Etc., etc. The least successful name change was Esso's switch to Humble (an affiliate in Texas or near there that practically no one in the Northeast had heard about; we certainly couldn't imagine Esso as being "humble". It was quickly replaced by Exxon. By the way, the oval Esso logo rarely if ever appeared on real tank cars; Union Tank Car Co. had been a major part of Rockefeller's empire and UTLX cars carried oil for many companies. I rarely if ever saw a tank car wearing the Atlantic sign; though that company sponsored baseball broadcasts in both Philly and New York City. Historically, Gulf Oil was based in Pittsburgh, Cities Service almost surely in New Jersey. Sun Oil Company was based in southeast Pennsylvania and its yellow, blue and red logos were on many tank cars right into the 1960's and probably 1970's.   Quaker State and Pennzoil were from the original Oil Region in northeast of Pittsburgh, south of New York's Southern Tier; they sold gasoline in that area but were famous for motor oil elsewhere; Kendall, in the same area, was probably less familiar nationwide. Standard Oil of California had to use Chevron when it expanded to the East Coast.

I believe few if any tank cars carrying gasoline sold by U.S. companies made it into Canada and cars labeled for Canadian gasoline brands rarely if ever came into the US. Cars carrying other products or crude oil from Canada did and do often cross the border, in recent years often lettered for Procor, which was long an affiliate of Union Tank Car Co. and may still be.  Similarly, I think cars carrying liquefied chlorine rarely traveled between the US and Canada; I may be wrong about that.

Decades ago I believe there were substantial shipments of cattle and sheep from Canada to meat packers in New England; there may have been some in the other direction.  I don't think that has been common at all recently.

In the 1950's and 1960's there definitely was a Shell gasoline station near the bridge that carried the highway to Rutland over the D&H tracks north of the old passenger depot.  One time only the first three letters of the company's name were illuminated, prompting my Dad to tell us kids about Ridger Haggard's novel She and the movie based on it.  That's also the source of Horace Rumpole's references to wife on Rumple of the Bailey on public TV not quite so far back in the past.

[lvrr325]

A lot of upheaval and transition in gas stations the last 10 or so years, between Speedway swallowing Hess and Mobil pulling out of New York (only to come back when 7-11 bought out Speedway). One little station up on the corner was a Sunoco for years, then became a Citgo, now a Conoco. In traveling I noticed a number of Sunocos become Speedway, one Hess an Exxon, etc.

We had Shell here at one time, several of the stations remain, most in other uses. I know we had BP here also, they had a large storage tank served off a DL&W spur, but they seem to have pulled out in the late 70s if not earlier.

As for what cars to run, if you can find video or photos of your road in that era, best to study them and see what freight cars you can identify, if you see a Phillips car then you're good. Old waybills might also help.