HO tank cars

[tom mann]

Who makes the best HO tank cars?

[cv_acr]

RTR 1970s-modern cars, definately Atlas.

They've got some nice ACF and upcoming GATC general purpose (20-25K) tanks, ACF 33K propane tanks, ACF clay slurry tanks, ACF chlorine tanks.

Athearn has nice modern (ie 2000s era) Ethanol cars.

What type of commodity service are you looking for, since tanks vary so much and are pretty specific?

[tom mann]

RTR 1970s-modern cars, definately Atlas.

They've got some nice ACF and upcoming GATC general purpose (20-25K) tanks, ACF 33K propane tanks, ACF clay slurry tanks, ACF chlorine tanks.

Athearn has nice modern (ie 2000s era) Ethanol cars.

What type of commodity service are you looking for, since tanks vary so much and are pretty specific?

Oil Refining, I think - the industries with the big white holding tanks.

[Ian MacMillan]

The Atlas cars are the best IMO. For the acid cars I go with the Railyard Models cars. Railyard produces some very nice craftsman car kits. I have several of the X58 cars and love em.

[cv_acr]

Tom: You think? 

Refining or just bulk distribution/transloading? An oil refinery is a huge complex and produces many incidental products other than the gasoline, diesel, kerosene (all liquids) and propane gas. Sulphur can be a significant byproduct from the crude oil if it's what's termed "sour" crude. "Sweet" crude is low-sulphur oil.

I grew up in Sarnia, ON which owes it's lifeblood to oil & other chemicals. There are refineries of Imperial Oil (Esso - owned by Exxon), Sunoco, Shell, BP Amoco and many different chemical plants of various descriptions (plastics, polymers, carbon black, synthetic rubber, etc.). I worked as a helper for a couple weeks on an industrial inspection crew at a nitrogen products plant (ammonia, nitric acid) during a scheduled maintenance shutdown. The industrial area to the south of town with all the refineries and chemical plants is referred to locally as "Chemical Valley" or just "the Valley" for short. (And it's not even necessarily a pejorative term. It's just that. "The Valley.")

The Atlas general purpose cars would be good cars to use for liquid petroleum products like gasoline or diesel fuel. With the upcoming GATX tanks there's two very nice models to build a fleet from. You could always improve some Walthers cars (UTC protoypes) to add to your variety. As a pressurized gas propane is quite obviously stored in very different types of tanks.

The Atlas 33K car is good for Propane (LPG) or Anhydrous Ammonia (probably not applicable for you), and Walthers has a UTC 33K LPG tank that would be great with a little detail attention.

Echoing Ian, Rail Yard Models is the name of the game for acid service tankcars, if you have a need for them (pretty common industrial chemical). Be nice if someone like Atlas did something like a Trinity version of the acid tank. A nice mix of UTC and Trinity acid tanks would be pretty good for acid traffic.

For molten raw sulphur, Walther's 16K funnel flow is pretty close to sulphur tanks I've seen.

[Ed Kapuscinski]

So Tom, the important thing to figure out first is what ACTUAL industries are going on the layout, then build the tank fleet around that.

[rswinnerton]

Don't forget to add KaDee double shelf couplers to your hazmat tanks!
RS

[SAH]

Very little of the products from a modern refinery go out by rail.  There are exceptions of course but most everything moves by pipeline.  My experience is from the early 80's:  Modern in the big scheme of things i suppose.

What I remember from my oil refining days:

Tank Cars

Motor Fuel Antiknock Compound - Usually a DuPont car.  I built a model of one.  If I can ever get back into photobucket again I'll post it.  Not sure if this stuff is used anymore

Asphalt - If your refinery has an asphalt plant a loading rack and those big insulated funnel flows would make a great weathering project.  Always wanted to see these done in N scale.

Molten Sulphur - In the cars cv_acr described.  Those telltale yellow spill streaks.

CO2 - I don't recall where in the process we used CO2 but one of those red, white & blue Liquid Carbonic cars would show up occasionally.  Very colorful.

LPG - Most went out by truck but a few RR cars were loaded every month

Hopper Cars

Petroleum Coke - Messy, stinky stuff.  Old C&O triples were assigned.  One of the end panels was painted grey.  They ran in captive service between the refinery in Toledo to a cement kiln in Dundee, MI (IIRC) for use as fuel.  I think I have a photo of one.  I'll see if I can find it if you wish.  Would make an out of the oridnary weathering project.

Steve

[SAH]

Motor Fuel Anti-knock Compound tank car.  Done before ride height and lo pros mattered.  Way outside my current modeling era but I still like it.



Steve

[GonzoCRFan]

Motor Fuel Antiknock Compound - Usually a DuPont car.  I built a model of one.  If I can ever get back into photobucket again I'll post it.  Not sure if this stuff is used anymore

Ahhh, the good old tetraethyl lead cars...no, it's not used anymore. I've heard that stuff was so damn toxic, there was no way to decontaminate those tankcars when they reached the end of their service life. I heard they had to be filled with concrete and buried underground.

As far as rail traffic from a refinery, the amount of products that go by rail depends on the prototype. One Sunoco refinery in Philly does very little rail traffic, just a little bit of inbound benzene to supplement their cumene production. However, the Sunoco refinery about 20 miles south, in Marcus Hook, does substantial rail business. They regularly ship LPG, cyclohexane, tar, and asphalt via rail, along with the occasional car of ethylene. They also operate a neighboring plastics plant which ships polypropylene pellets. Back when I was in the Philly area, this refinery probably accounted for 30-40 cars a day, split between CSX and NS, but with NS carrying most of the traffic.