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Post by mlehman on May 5, 2012 7:16:29 GMT -8
Time for a good -old-fashioned knock-down-drag-out discussion about our dreams for new models.
I posted this on one of those more sedate forums and am drawing a few interesting responses, so it is a repost of sorts. However, I'm sure a discussion here will go in all sorts of interesting directions not covered by that conversation, so here goes...
Back before the fantastic models we now get mostly RTR, I often wished for a wider variety of boxcars. While there are still plenty of great cars that no manufacturer has produced, you can now make up a train with a variety of boxcars in it in any one of several periods of time covering a range of rolling stock prototype eras throughout the 20th century.
Tank cars are a different matter. Modern era modelers are pretty well taken care of with recent releases, although I'm sure they could name a bunch of ones they'd still like to see. But before 1980, well, things are kind of stuck, with a relatively limited set of prototypes available and very little new in recent years.
I'm thinking mostly of mass produced, injection molded models, which I'm familiar with for the most part. Resin and other kits I'm less familiar with, so maybe I'm missing something there?
What I'm personally looking for are various acid and chemical tank cars, which often have a somewhat different form factor than the more commonly used petroleum tank cars, making it necessary to do more than redetail and redecorate something that might be close-enough to get what I need. Tank size is a big factor in how each car looks, so you're close to scratchbuilding to get something that even looks good enough for a stand-in.
I actually don't mind scratchbuilding when modelling a prototype I really need. The reality is I don't have too much of a hang-up about getting specific cars, it's more a matter of getting cars that are visually different enough as an indication that they're carrying different something other than oil and gas to make switching them into the smelter versus a refinery plausible. RTR and kits are more likely to get my attention and on the layout faster, of course.
So any suggestions for kits I may have missed that involve chemicals and such?
Are there favorite and, even better, relatively numerous prototype tank cars that you think would be a slamdunk sales success if produced in a credible version?
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Post by riogrande on May 5, 2012 8:02:19 GMT -8
I'm with you on the pre-1980's tank cars and freight cars in general. While we have a fair amount of rolling stock from the 1970's, it still seems this is a somewhat neglected era and one which I'd like to see more.
Not only tank cars but a glaring omission are the mid-era auto racks. Basically we have either some generic open racks from the late 60's and early 70's from Accurail, and many of them are not accurate but only generic. The we skip ahead to the late 1980's with Walthers bi- and tri level auto racks. Even the new Intermountain Autoracks are mainly of 1990+ versions.
So getting autoracks for the mid-1970-late 1980's period is one of the still missing HO freight car gaps.
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Post by rhpd42002 on May 5, 2012 9:03:21 GMT -8
I'm not well versed in Tankcarology, but I do have an affinity for tank cars.
Most of the newer types are fine, but as I model from generally the late 60's to mid 80's, I'd like to see some older style tank cars.
I've not hunted high & low for some of the older 6,000 - 8,000 gal. cars, but if/when I go looking, I can a little variety to my miniscule fleet of tankers.
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Post by riogrande on May 5, 2012 9:37:39 GMT -8
I have to admit, tank cars are one of the freight cars I look at and think, "there goes a tank car" so I only have a general notion of how they look and what looks to be a correct era etc.
In effort to balance my fleet to have a good "bridge route" mix I've collected a modest number mainly from Atlas, Walthers, MDC and Athearn:
Atlas:
-about 4 Koalin tank cars
-about 3 33k whale belly propane cars
-about 4 26k petroleum tank cars
Walthers:
-about 5 33k propane cars
-about 5 26k tank cars
-about 3 16k tank cars (hooker, adm, etc)
A few odd Athearn and MDC
I try to get mostly plain jane common UTLX etc markings and avoid the billboard schemes since mostly what I've noticed in D&RGW bridge traffic are plain jane.
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Post by gbc636 on May 5, 2012 10:55:51 GMT -8
A friend of mine models Conrail from 76-86, and was wondering if there's anything out there that could be used for tar service.
Greg B.
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Post by Donnell Wells on May 5, 2012 11:08:47 GMT -8
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Post by riogrande on May 5, 2012 11:15:06 GMT -8
The 13,600 gal acid tank cars look nice and I may have to hunt one down.
The 8,000 Gal car looks similar to the old MDC shorty tank car. I built a couple of those but sold them off as I couldn't really ever find anything like that in Rio Grande freight trains.
The 20,900 gal acid tank looks alot like the MDC kit of similar size. Is it? I still have a couple of very similar tank cars I built up from MDC kits.
I know Athearn took over MDC molds so it wouldn't surprise me if some of Athearns tank cars are of MDC heritage.
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Post by riggelweg on May 5, 2012 11:36:45 GMT -8
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Post by Donnell Wells on May 5, 2012 11:45:31 GMT -8
The transition, and post-transition era had really interesting cars. The F&C tanks look really good. I model more modern era, but can appericiate the craftsmanship that goes into those kits.
Donnell
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Post by mlehman on May 5, 2012 11:52:31 GMT -8
Donnell, Thanks for the links. Those Athearn tanks are a little too modern for me, but certainly worth knowing about and running one or two, if I can find them. That's a start, though. I'll have to spend some time on that tank car site. Although badly organized, there is good stuff to browse over there. Here's a even more bountiful resource, although like many it tends to be skewed to more modern prototypes. There are still plenty of more venerable cars among the current 5742 entries: www.railcarphotos.com/Search.php?SearchType=Tank%20Car&Search=SearchJim, We need more threads. You should start one for autoracks. Biggest issue there yet to be solved is making a loaded autorack affordable. riggelweg, Thanks for the links, I'll have to check them out. Maybe I'll find something, but I think you're right, even the resin kit builders seem to not have done much with offering more diversity in tank cars. |
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Post by riogrande on May 5, 2012 12:14:12 GMT -8
Donnell, Thanks for the links. Those Athearn tanks are a little too modern for me... Eh? Too modern? Weren't those all pre-1980 tank cars? Aren't you posting pictures of your layout with lots of post 1990 trains or am I mistaking you for another Rio Grande modeler?  Yes, good idea. I started a thread on MR forums too, just because I'm hoping manufacturers read those forums and may see there is interest and a gap. I believe manufacturers read Atlas too, but that has gone the way of the Dodo, so ... Anyhow, yes, I can start a thread here too, but mainly I want companies to make autoracks. Of course the rub with open racks is populating them and I don't see anyway around the cost since you need cars on some of them. I missed out on some of the cars people have posted as economical car loads at Walmart and the like - Fresh Cherry's as I recall one of them. But if anyone is aware of decent 1970's car loads that look ok and aren't expensive, please do alert us! As for enclosed or semi-enclosed, that will cut down on the car load costs. The roofless cars will still require the upper deck populated, the lower deck being covered and hidden. What I have at present are some 12 Walthers enclosed autoracks but a few of them are TTX speed logo and too modern so I'll need to sell them and replace them with more TT logo cars. I do have a few Accuready cars that need auto's, and two Accurail kits (AT&SF and SP) that need built yet, those can often be found at trainshows fur $10 or under. But as I noted, the Accrurail racks are generic and often incorrect - so many had different flat cars under them. The D&RGW RTR bi-level looks close to one class owned by D&RGW which I bought. The other two are C&NW - but I can always rebadge one or more. A lot of them I see in trains are SP, AT&SF, IC, NW, WP, etc. |
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Post by mlehman on May 5, 2012 14:13:49 GMT -8
Jim, Yes, gotta be some confusion but I'm at that age, too...  Officially, anything past 1975 is past my use by date, although I tend to be a little flexible in practice. Shiny new tunnel motors, yes, lots of GP40s, no thanks. It was the 70s and who remembers half of what went on then anyway  ? |
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Post by riogrande on May 5, 2012 17:40:32 GMT -8
Jim, Yes, gotta be some confusion but I'm at that age, too... Officially, anything past 1975 is past my use by date, although I tend to be a little flexible in practice. Shiny new tunnel motors, yes, lots of GP40s, no thanks. It was the 70s and who remembers half of what went on then anyway ? No worries. There is someone on MR who does Rio Grande and has a nice layout but he shows pictures of a lot of post 1990 stuff which is well, a bit too modern for me. I cut things off when it was basically "classic" Rio Grande era, but the more I watch my Green Frog's Rio Grande Odyssey, the more I love the 1970's. Lots of Evergreen box cars, SP and SSW Gunderson 5200 box cars, SP 40' modernized box cars, orange D&RGW covered hoppers, Vertapac's, open autoracks etc etc! No thanks to GP40-2's? The 1972 scenes in RGO video shows GP40-2's at that head of many freight trains. I think they were new at the time. Anything before 1975 had tunnel motors and GP40-2's mixed, but mostly SD45's with GP40's, GP30's and GP35 sandwiched in as B units. |
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Post by tankcarsrule on May 14, 2012 6:31:46 GMT -8
When in doubt, scratch!
Bobby
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Post by keystonecrossings on May 15, 2012 7:13:00 GMT -8
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Post by rhpd42002 on May 15, 2012 14:27:01 GMT -8
LOL  M60-A1, IIRC.... |
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Post by calzephyr on May 16, 2012 5:16:21 GMT -8
Now that is a tank car for sure!!!! LOL! Larry |
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Post by riggelweg on May 20, 2012 15:59:41 GMT -8
Help please I have photos of two tank cars but don't know how to add them ! is there a way for "dummies" to be able to do this simple task. I could send the photos in an e mail if that would help. JB. Do you have the pics hosted on a website such as Photobucket or Flickr? If so, all you need to do is put the link to the picture between the img...img tags. |
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Post by rhpd42002 on May 21, 2012 16:38:19 GMT -8
Jim, if I may, I suggest you search for Photobucket on you computer. Then open a free account. Once you've done that, you can upload from your computer to Photobucket, any pics you want. Once you've done that, and you want to post a pic to this or most any other forum, go to the pic and there are "windows" that have different options you can put your cursor over. Just go to the one that the ![]() in it's "window" and click on it and you'll see "copied" flash very briefly. Go to the Forum post you want the pinc in, right click on your mouse and left click on paste and ![]() whatever ![]() will appear. Go to the bottom of the posting window and click on preview post and if you did it correctly, you will see your pic made it into your post.  Someone may be better able to explain it than I have. I was apprehensive myself some years ago, but once I got the hang of it, well....... I started posting to Forums a whole lot more. ;D Give it a try and if you need help, ask. |
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Post by riggelweg on May 21, 2012 18:13:41 GMT -8
Jim, you can also select the "Browse" button when you are typing your reply. When you click this button, you will be able to select the photo on your computer for upload. You do not need Facebook or any photo hosting webpage, such as Photobucket, to do this. Attachments:
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Post by mlehman on May 22, 2012 13:56:39 GMT -8
Hmmm, serious thread drift. Back to having fun. Yep, we have a rather unique narrowgauge tank car:  Something to do with the Miner's Militia up in Red Mountain, I'm told. They never have labor troubles up there, but word is that sometimes they do have "management problems," which get fixed suddenly in favor of the union...   But we still need more conventional tank cars. I may have to see if I can scare up some of those MDC Oldtimer tank cars. The tank on those is about right for an acid tanker with a more modern frame underneath. In fact, I have a hazy memory that a bash very much like this was written up be someone several decades back. |
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Post by rhpd42002 on May 28, 2012 14:35:47 GMT -8
James sent me an e-mail with these tank pics he had and asked me to try to post them for him. Here goes......   |
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Post by fr8kar on May 30, 2012 5:42:47 GMT -8
First of all, let me say I'm with you on this. I imagine it's partly where I live and mostly what I do, but I see so many tank cars in any given day that I am often aware of how tank car poor I am. I haven't kept a tally of prototype tanks vs. other car types, but only about ten percent of my rolling stock is represented by tank cars. If I tripled my tank car collection, I think I might be in the ballpark. There are some real gaps between which models are available and what fills up the prototype yards. Unfortunately, I don't think Joe Modeler cares about the differences beyond a certain point. Sure, we have some of the distinctive cars done, like the Atlas LPG tank or Walthers crude "Funnel Flow" series. But I think people's eyes begin to glaze over when they see something like the Athearn RTC 20K gallon tank, which can be done in a pretty wide variety of styles. Would another manufacturer's 20K gallon tank be different enough from the Athearn RTC model to make it a viable model? Another 20K gallon car with a different saddle style might appeal to me, but with the same manway, outlet and basic black paint scheme, is anyone else going to notice? With that rant out of the way, there are some pretty distinctive cars I would like to see. Refrigerated gases are big in my area, so the tank cars that transport them would be welcome additions to my collection. I would love to see something like this car, built in 1977: www.railcarphotos.com/PhotoDetails.php?PhotoID=52065I could also go for a carbon dioxide car like this one built in 1968: www.railcarphotos.com/PhotoDetails.php?PhotoID=51100Older cars like these are still out there today and they are largely indistinguishable from many newer cars carrying the same commodities. I like the new Athearn LPG cars, but since they are way too new for me, I won't buy them. Seems like an opportunity was missed to offer an older prototype of the same car that could be used by modelers of the 1970s, 80s, 90s and present day. I hope the next tank car model to come out covers a much longer operating era than the Athearn LPG car. If it's anything like the other recent Athearn and Atlas tank cars, I'll buy it. |
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Post by riogrande on May 30, 2012 7:14:52 GMT -8
I am often aware of how tank car poor I am. I haven't kept a tally of prototype tanks vs. other car types, but only about ten percent of my rolling stock is represented by tank cars. If I tripled my tank car collection, I think I might be in the ballpark. Thats probably true for many of us, so the tank car fans have a big job to edumacate the rest of us who tend to be least educated a seemingly ignored class of freight car - the tank car. I too probably can say tank cars make up a fairly small percentage of my fleet, and I can probably count in my head about now many I have - which is not true for box cars for sure. I'd guess I have around 25 tank cars total, a mix of Atlas, Walthers, Athearn and MDC - none manufactured in the last 4-5 years. All good comments, and yes I am probably in that category of Joe modeler who's eye's glaze over when I see tank cars. The tank cars I have bought I bought mainly because of my goal to include a fairly realistic mix of appropriate freight cars which would have been "bridged" across the Rockies or in some cases like Conoco, actually been transported from online shippers to online recipients. I believe Conoco has been named on the Yahoo Groups Email list as shipping between Denver and Yampa Valley or Grand Junction. I would be interested in tank cars built in the late 60's thru 70's, any tank car model which is fairly common is all I am after - the oddballs are cool but if you don't see them much, then ... I've casually noted the scad's of expensive Genesis tank cars in the past couple years and thanked my lucky stars they were too new for me, because as nice as they are, they are way too modern. Of course anything with conspicuity stripes is a red flag shouting "ULTRA MODERN" at me and to run the other way. I think most of the tank cars produced new in HO in the last 2 or 3 years have been post 1990 models so I haven't bought any tank cars at all. As it is that has helped me focus on other classes than I do need. |
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Post by fr8kar on May 31, 2012 6:10:33 GMT -8
There's all kinds of stuff that's shipped in tank cars, so you could justify nearly anything going through the rockies from beef tallow to butadiene. There's fuel oil, lube oil, waste oil, soybean, sunflower and linseed oil. There are acids for a variety of uses, chlorine for water treatment, vinyl chloride to make water and sewer pipe, LPG for heating, methyl mercaptan to odorize the LPG, anhydrous ammonia for farming, corn syrup for sodas and on and on.
I think part of the tank car's appeal is that it's one of the easiest cars to tell what it carries. Any child can figure out it carries a liquid. But part of the mystery about tank cars is the type of liquid it carries. It's pretty easy for us to spot boxcars that carry lumber or beer or frozen foods. Or covered hoppers that carry cement or wheat or plastic pellets. But identifying the liquid inside a tank car isn't quite as easy without knowing hazmat placards or the relationship of a tank car style and capacity to the goods best suited to it.
I think petrol is most people's go-to commodity for tank cars, which is what I infer from your comment that Conoco shipped on the DRGW. But for all the petrol and related goods that ship in tanks, there are so many others you might not think of right away. If you're modeling the Better Living Through Chemistry era, odds are it ships in a tank car. Even rural areas where animals are fed or processed, you will likely need a tank car on both sides of that operation. My point is this: if you're looking for customers for tank cars, don't just look to the petrol industry.
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Post by riogrande on May 31, 2012 11:21:06 GMT -8
Rch,
True, which is why I have never really paid close attentioned to the neglected freight car class, other than trying to make sure they look "typical" and are correct for the 70's and 80's, and represent a mix of 1600, 2500 and 3300 approx gal tank cars, which are kaolin, chemical, corn syrup, petroleum and LPG for the most part, and some acid etc. I think I have a gray Hooker with black center band, Cargil. The main thing I've done is avoid large name or logo tank cars since most of those I've noted in D&RGW bridge traffic seem to be "plain jane" tank cars, mostly black plain jane, a few white, blue or rust brown.
Interesting you mentioned vinyl chloride - when I used to conduct soil vapor survey's as an environmental geologist usiing a gas chromatograph, vinyl chloride, if present was the most volatile of the VOC's we would try to measure and would pass through the collumn so fast it was hard to identify and measure. When we did detect it, it was usually present as a break down product of other chlorinated compounds like PERC (perchlorethylene/tetrachlor), TCE, and cis and trans DCE. That was in Rochester NY and vicinity. We also looked for Methylene Chloride which Kodak used as a solvent in their film production, which has largely diminished in recent years with the digital revolution!
One of the cool things about working in environmental investigations is that many were at active industrial sites like Kodak, Xerox, Monsanto etc, and there were very often tank cars present. At Monsanto in the late 90's I even recall seeing a tank car like the long slender Athearn tank car there. I also worked at a former Black & Decker site in Brockport NY which was being used to manufacture plastic bottles for Kleen Bright for liquid detergent. IIRC, they had plastics pellet hoppers there to unload for the molding of the bottles.
Ah, you mentioned petrol - that is what my British wife says when she refers to gasoline - the British term! heh heh. In fact whenever I hear the term petrol, thats what I think - British term for gasoline. I don't even remember hearing it used back when I lived in Houston and worked for Gearhart Industries which did wireline services for the major oil companies. But I never got deep into the oil industry since as a geologist, since Oil was on the down swing and they were never hiring when I was looking for work, but the envirnomental industry was booming at that time so thats where I found work. I did work for as a consultant for Shell from 2004-2008 but that was plugging oil wells in NY, PA and WV.
The D&RGW Yahoo Groups Email list folks have told me that Conoco was online for D&RGW so I've tried to fill in my roster with some CONX tank cars where I could find them. Anyhow, as far as the petroluem industry, yes, I am not limiting myself. My goal is a prototypical mix, but I'm sure I need to add more tank cars still and I'm always keeping an eye out for a few more. It just seems most of what has been coming out in the past 2-3 years were built after 1990, which is too modern for me.
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Post by mlehman on Jun 1, 2012 5:39:57 GMT -8
James,
Even without a stenciled NEW date, the MickeyD logo on that tank car is definitely right out of the 70s. McDonalds itself wasn't founded until the early-mid 50s.
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?
M60-A1, IIRC....
