A question on intermingling Frame and Framless tank cars

[brammy]

So, I model two eras EL 1970s and Modern Day UP. My layout's main industry is an oil refinery. Naturally, half my tank cars are frameless with build dates of 1990s and later (20-30k cars); and the other half framed 40' 1-3 expansion dome cars.

I decided that for operating purposes for quite a while I will set it in the EL era. I just have more overall cars for that era, and quite a few are either-era appropriate.

So, the big question is -- reporting marks and the like aside -- how often would frame, and frameless cars be mixed. I am expecting to hand wave away the reporting mark and build dates if 20 and 30k cars ran in the 70s. That said, I might have enough of each that the local could swap out "full" framed for "empty" frameless (and vise versa).

The other thing keeping me in the EL era is almost all my open hoppers to take the petcoke out are EL lettered.

[edwardsutorik]

Bluford Shops has a really excellent timeline:

bluford-shops.com/bluford_93_024.htm

that says 1962 was when frameless tank cars were introduced.

(I snagged the whole thing and stuck it into Photoshop. Whenever I find a new event that might fit, I put it into the appropriate year, over on the right. In an extended big white area.)


Wandering through Edward Kaminski's "American Car & Foundry, 1899-1999", we find:

ACF apparently introduced the frameless concept in 1962 with a 30,757 gallon whale belly car. Others variants followed, all appearing to me to be what I'd call "big propane cars". Around '67 or '68, it looks like the frameless concept drifted into what we might call the generic 20,000 gallon cars. There were still framed tank cars being built.

So, yup, you can mix them. I expect they should look similar-ish, though, as appropriate. That nice old Athearn 62' tank car would seem to be an excellent candidate to mix in with frameless.

I would figure an oil refinery would ship varied products, so one track MIGHT be loading some of the generic-looking old tank cars, while another the frameless. I'm not familiar with such practices, though. Sounds like fun to research.

While your main industry might be an oil refinery, other products might be passing through, in more varied styles of cars.



Ed

[brammy]

Thank you! I was able to get some info from Jeff Wilson's Modern Rolling Stock also.

Digging through some of my EL videos I did find some footage with both in them. One thing I meant to clarify: this was for spotting at the refinery only.

[edwardsutorik]

Research is quite the adventure! It seems there would be photos of refineries with the occasional buncha tank cars showing.

I suppose you could come up with a list of "stuff" a refinery produces, and then do searches for rail transport of each of them. Might turn up some interesting/unusual stuff. Or "stuff", as the case may be.


Ed

[brammy]

One of the challenges I've had is when I was just free-running at the club,. mixed eras was easy to deal with: these cars can run with my wide cabs; these cars are for my EL trains. There was a little bit of bleed over but I was just setting up a train and running it.

Now, I want something that at least looks correct without going broke buying tank cars for both eras. I have a decent amount of the short framed cars. I will work on buying more of the frameless over time. I am willing to overlook a more modern tank car running with my EL stuff for locals at home.

My 3-bay hoppers I am also not worrying about. Sure, a lot of them are labeled for EL, but again, modeling fidelity often doesn't survive finances.

My other main industry is a cement plant and now I really wish I ordered a bunch of Flexis.

[simulatortrain]

UTC was building frameless tank cars from 1954 (ignoring the much earlier Van Dyke cars.) I suspect there's not much reason to avoid mixing types as long as they have similar capacities, tank types, and fittings.

[brammy]

Thanks,

there are going to be some unavoidable anachronisms for a while. One or two of the tank cars have FRA reflective strips, and are likely some of the newer TILX cars. Over the years I will work on being able to set up a small operating session for each era. For now though, My EL switcher I love dearly may be switching out a new 60' Railbox car and my CSX Arrowhead gondola.

[edwardsutorik]

That UTLX car looks pretty interesting. Is there any more info on it?

It looks like there's a long steel plate under the tank, running the length of the car. Perhaps it's "semi-frameless"? It pre-dates the ACF car by 8 years, which clashes with the 1962 date in the Bluford timeline. Which, of course, could be incorrect.



Ed

[Baikal]

Sept 16, 2020 8:16:09 GMT -8 edwardsutorik said:

That UTLX car looks pretty interesting. Is there any more info on it?

It looks like there's a long steel plate under the tank, running the length of the car. Perhaps it's "semi-frameless"? It pre-dates the ACF car by 8 years, which clashes with the 1962 date in the Bluford timeline. Which, of course, could be incorrect.

Ed

www.utlx.com/utlx-history/

1954

"Union Tank Car Company introduces significant tank car design improvements, eliminating under frames, tank bands, running boards and expansion domes."

www.utlx.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/history-1954-HD-design.jpg (photo of UTLX 42998)

[edwardsutorik]

Thanks for the links! I'd sure like to be in the room when reps for UTLX and ACF discuss the matter of who's on first.

Sure looks like a running board, there, though.



Ed

[edwardsutorik]

Sept 15, 2020 12:00:15 GMT -8 brammy said:

My other main industry is a cement plant and now I really wish I ordered a bunch of Flexis.

They are interesting cars, for sure.

Here's another cement hopper:




I do wonder if you'd be ahead using Kadee PS-2's and Intermountain 1958's. They're both good models, and very typical cement cars. Intermountain has done theirs in E-L and Erie.

The "talk" is that cement cars don't wander far. This would imply your cement cars would tend to be home road. Makes sense, but who knows if a PRR or NH slips in somehow? I don't. Living in Oakland, back in the olden days of the '70's, I saw a PILE of SP cement cars. In fact, on Sunday there was usually "the cement train", with lotsa cement cars. No surprise there. But the consist was packed with SDP45's. To some, that's a surprise. I've got a photo somewhere here with about half the SP fleet on the front of one of them. Plus a bicentennial!

But I digress......



Ed

[brammy]

Sept 16, 2020 10:36:13 GMT -8 edwardsutorik said:

They are interesting cars, for sure.

Here's another cement hopper:




I do wonder if you'd be ahead using Kadee PS-2's and Intermountain 1958's. They're both good models, and very typical cement cars. Intermountain has done theirs in E-L and Erie.

The "talk" is that cement cars don't wander far. This would imply your cement cars would tend to be home road. Makes sense, but who knows if a PRR or NH slips in somehow? I don't. Living in Oakland, back in the olden days of the '70's, I saw a PILE of SP cement cars. In fact, on Sunday there was usually "the cement train", with lotsa cement cars. No surprise there. But the consist was packed with SDP45's. To some, that's a surprise. I've got a photo somewhere here with about half the SP fleet on the front of one of them. Plus a bicentennial!

But I digress......



Ed

I have a ton of 2-bay cars. Well, one never truly has enough, but I digress.

A large amount of the cars that will service my industries are of the "Dang, I like the looks of that car." scheme.

I grew up near a Flexi-flow unloading facility so they have a nostalgic spot in my heart.

[edwardsutorik]

Sounds good.

I'm sure Rapido will do another run. The molds will already exist.

Of course, there's the wait. Guess you'll have to salve yourself by playing with trains.


Ed

[brammy]

Sept 16, 2020 13:51:46 GMT -8 edwardsutorik said:

Sounds good.

I'm sure Rapido will do another run. The molds will already exist.

Of course, there's the wait. Guess you'll have to salve yourself by playing with trains.


Ed

Yeah. And I don't need too drive to the club to run trains. I can just go downstairs. How I find the will to go on is inspiring.

I expect I will be able to get some Flexi's from a dealer when they ship also.

[edwardsutorik]

Funny how we rise to adversity!

Since I'm a west coast guy, I decided to get a couple of the later private owner cars. I've seen a picture or two of them out here, all by themselves. That'll do nicely for me. I doubt they're hauling cement--probably secretstuffite.

The NYC ones are WAY prettier, but there's no way they made it here. Besides, I've got my cute little whalebellys.


Ed

[riogrande]

Sept 16, 2020 15:24:14 GMT -8 edwardsutorik said:

Since I'm a west coast guy ..

The NYC ones are WAY prettier, but there's no way they made it here. Besides, I've got my cute little whalebellys.


Ed

Despite being stranded on the east coast far away from all those 🔥 I still harken to my west coast roots.

The NYC/PC are way prettier. So much so I'm tempted to alter history. The jury is still out. In the mean time I still have an FMC version pre-ordered.

In the mean time, I'm mixing framed and frameless tank cars for 70 Rio Grande. Plenty of photo evidence they were both on the rails then, but I'd hazard that frameless dominated.

[packer]

Sept 16, 2020 10:36:13 GMT -8 edwardsutorik said:

Sept 15, 2020 12:00:15 GMT -8 brammy said:

My other main industry is a cement plant and now I really wish I ordered a bunch of Flexis.

They are interesting cars, for sure.

Here's another cement hopper:




I do wonder if you'd be ahead using Kadee PS-2's and Intermountain 1958's. They're both good models, and very typical cement cars. Intermountain has done theirs in E-L and Erie.

The "talk" is that cement cars don't wander far. This would imply your cement cars would tend to be home road. Makes sense, but who knows if a PRR or NH slips in somehow? I don't. Living in Oakland, back in the olden days of the '70's, I saw a PILE of SP cement cars. In fact, on Sunday there was usually "the cement train", with lotsa cement cars. No surprise there. But the consist was packed with SDP45's. To some, that's a surprise. I've got a photo somewhere here with about half the SP fleet on the front of one of them. Plus a bicentennial!

But I digress......



Ed

I want one of those (and was curious what service it’d be in) but I don’t know if I want for over the $ for brass.

[edwardsutorik]

It's a cement car.

Burlington bought 50 in January 1967 (84950-84999)--to BN. SAL also bought 50 (7050-7099)--to SCL--to CSX. Don't know what the SAL cars carried--something about as dense as cement, though.

Dragon Cement picked up some/all of the above (the Burlington, I believe):

imagestorage.nerail.org/photos/2004/01/23/2004012316470227520.jpg

I went with the Burlington/BN, as I model the PNW. I believe I've seen a photo of one of them "up there".

The Railway Classics painted ones seem to be going for $600, these days. List was $285, back when I bought mine.



Besides brass, there's the Q Connection kit, which ain't cheap, either:

qconnection.biz/Whalebelly.htm

Note that the above site has some history on these cars.

Kaslo shows one for a good bit less--don't know why the big difference:

www.kasloshops.com/products/nk-18



Ed

[simulatortrain]

The Kaslo kit is N scale.

[edwardsutorik]

Oct 9, 2020 4:36:09 GMT -8 simulatortrain said:

The Kaslo kit is N scale.

I thought it might be, but I couldn't find a scale description. So the car is available in at least two scales. It IS cute as the dickens*.


Thanks,

Ed

*dickens--not a reference to our good friend, Charles. Apparently a substitute word for devil. Hey, maybe it's appropriate for a car labeled "Dragon".