Farm Town Oil Dealer

[Funnelfan]

In Wilbur, WA there is a really well preserved example of a small town oil dealer. Seems most of farm towns out here had 2 or 3 or 4 of these at one time. The only thing missing now is the rail spur, likely removed in the 1980s. They would have unloaded tankcars at the pump house and routed the contents of fuel to one of the tanks by selecting the pipe to be used. There was also the warehouse where 55 gallon drums of oil and grease were wheeled out of boxcars. These local facilities stopped using rail service in the 1970s and 80s when regional distribution centers came into vogue. Walthers has made several fuel distributor kits in HO scale which can be used to model a scene like this.

The truck distribution platform. Looks like the owner just walked away from it one day, leaving everything as it was. The hoses that dangled from the pipes above the truck seem to be missing though. They filled the tank truck through hatches on the roof of the truck. The compartment at the back of the tank truck held hoses. These trucks delivered fuel to gas stations, farms, airports, even directly to tractors and locomotives on occasion.

Front side of the warehouse. 55 gal drums of oil and grease in a variety of grades and types were stored here for local distribution. They also had some small fuel tanks that could be sold or leased to customers. Heating oil for a home furnace was a common use of them.

The middle of the complex with two tank trucks and a box van for local deliveries. The box van would deliver 55 gal drums of oil and grease, often to automotive garages. If you were having a oil change done on your car, that is how the motor oil arrived at the shop.

Warehouse dock was a well built to handle the weight of all those 55 gallon drums.

Electrical junction box was outside of the complex so that power could be shut off in the event the complex was going up in flames. This was originally a Standard Oil Dealer, later Chevron.

Backside of the warehouse. Note the old Standard Oil logos are starting to show through. The rail spur ran along the back of the warehouse and boxcars were spotted at the door for unloading 55 gal drums of oil and grease.

The pump house was the center of the oil and fuel dealer complex. Tankcars were unloaded right in the foreground, and pumped through the pipes to various tanks. The pump would also transfer contents between tanks or from tanks to the truck loading platform. The tanks would hold various kinds of fuel from home heating oil, to different grades of gasoline, diesel, and even aviation gasoline that would be trucked to the airport.

Pipes run from the pump house at left to each of the tanks on the right, or the truck loading platform seen in prior photos. Tankcars would have been unloaded on the spur in the immediate foreground.

The backside of the complex. The spur left the ex-NP CW Branch mainline to the right and ran along the backside of the dealer complex. Tankcars were spotted next to the pump house, and boxcars at the warehouse door.

[GP40P-2]

Great photo essay, thanks for posting it. It is so important to shoot these sorts of relics (or old fallen flag RR items, old trucks, old buildings/gas stations/stores/etc and get them on record. Even mundane junk like old newspaper racks, electrical equipment, road signs. The world is changing quickly, record it now before it's gone.

[lvrr325]

This is essentially Walthers "Interstate Fuel and Oil" with a different arrangement for the warehouse.

The box truck is an International from the 1970s, I'm not sure what year but I believe they made them from 1971-79 and they had only minor differences through the run.

The tanker facing out is a Chevy C50, C60 big squarebody and those look about the same through their entire run 1973-1991. Looks like the one facing away is another Chevy. You could probably stand in CMW 1960 Fords with their tank body here, although for a 1970s era the tank is rather small. Roco or someone made a tanker trailer that shortened would more closely match these truck bodies.

[kentuckysouthernrwy]

Nice photo shoot. Interesting subject with great model potential.

[fiend540]

What tank car models would be appropriate for some place like this in the 70s-80s?

[Funnelfan]

Nov 6, 2021 22:09:31 GMT -8 fiend540 said:

What tank car models would be appropriate for some place like this in the 70s-80s?

Generally the 10k ~ 19k gallon cars built after WWII through the 1950's. Some of those were used well into the 1980's. The 20k+ gal cars built in the 1960's or later presented problems for the small oil dealers. The capacity was approaching or equal to the size of the tanks that were at the oil dealer. As a oil dealer, you didn't want to run out of product, but the dealer tanks had to be nearly empty to empty the railcars in a timely manner and not end up paying a ton of demurrage cost for holding the tankcar for days until it was empty. With delivery times running three weeks or more, it was hard to judge how empty your tanks were going to be when the tankcar showed up on your spur. The smaller tankcars were easier to manage.

Now what really killed these small oil dealers was pipelines. After WWII, pipelines where being constructed connecting refineries with large cities. In these large cities, regional distribution terminals were being constructed. This really got going in the 60's and 70's. With improved highways and the low transportation costs of pipelines, these regional terminals could deliver fuel to small town gas stations at a lower cost than the local fuel dealer could do. Looking at old aerial imagery, you can see the oil dealers close to large cities being dismantled by the early 60's, but those that were further away were still thriving through the 1960's. It wasn't until the 70's and 80's that highway improvements and larger trucks extended the economic reach of regional terminals to included even the more remote small towns.
Even the regional fuel distribution terminals will receive product in tankcars, because the size of the shipment of specialty oils is too small to be practical in the pipeline.

[Christian]

Terrific information.

[scl1234]

Nov 6, 2021 22:09:31 GMT -8 fiend540 said:

What tank car models would be appropriate for some place like this in the 70s-80s?

I was looking at a Campbell Scale Models kit yesterday. It apparently uses the Athearn single (large) dome tank car shell, with railings, as the fuel storage tank. Found one on that auction site...

www.ebay.com/itm/393552393673?hash=item5ba18cf5c9:g:42EAAOSwLt5hNCOI