Covered Hoppers

Something different before more tank cars. Covered hoppers were a small, but growing, class of cars. 

Cement

In this era, the most common commodity for covered hoppers was cement. Once again, New Britain doesn't have a local bulk cement company that would receive such cars. Building Supply companies would have received bagged cement in box cars.  It wasn't unusual for cement to be delivered in covered hoppers for large projects, though. So it would be feasible to have some delivered to the bulk tracks.

The LNE was a major shipper of cement. Some sources I've identified include Lehigh Portland Cement Co in Sandt's Eddy, and Fogelsville, PA.  Atlas Cement Co. in Northampton, PA served by N&B and connecting to the LNE in Bath. The DL&W also interchanged at Bath, but the primary connection for eastbound traffic was the LNE.  Alpha Cement Co. in Martins Creek, PA was also served by the LNE.

Intermountain produced an LNE car, and I'll pick one up if I see one although it needs different door hardware. I have an F&C resin kit to build for a different prototype. 

Sand

The large industries of New Britain received other commodities that were often shipped in covered hoppers, though. Sand being the most common one.

The city may have received sand for roads in the winter. I'm modeling early November, so this is a good option. However, cinders were also often used, and would have been readily available from the power houses of the many industries. It's unclear what New Britain was using at the time.

Whibco was one of the largest producers of sand. They were based in New Jersey, but had facilities in Marion, MA and Provincetown in Cape Cod, both on the New Haven. Boston Sand & Gravel in Scituate, MA is another possibility, also on the NH.

Outside of New Haven territory, Whibco had locations in NJ (served by the PRSL, a Pennsylvania/Reading joint operation), and Slingerland and Selkirk, NY which were served by the D&H. 

This D&H covered hopper is the Intermountain model of the very common ACF 1958 cu. ft. design. 

In a 1950 memo, New Haven covered hoppers 117000-3 were assigned to Marion for sand service. This is the Intermountain car, but with different door hardware. The Intermountain model that has been released is the later paint scheme, however. I have an undecorated one to modify in the future.

However, another use for this type of sand was sandblasting. Russell & Erwin had such facilities, and Stanley Works probably did too. 

Russell & Erwin was moving away from casting in 1950, but Stanley Works also needed casting sand.  Sand for industrial casting, such as for cast iron, needed to be more uniform and was a higher grade. New England sand typically wasn't suitable.  The Pennsylvania Glass Co. in Mapleton or McVeytown, PA was a common supplier, both served by the Pennsy.  Mifflin Sand Co, also located in McVeytown, was acquired by Pennsylvania Glass in 1952.

The PRR H32 is a Bowser model.

Aluminum Oxide

Items were also blasted with Aluminum Oxide (also called "Alumina") instead of sand. The Aluminum Ore Co was located in Bauxite, AL and owned the Bauxite & Northern Railroad that interchanged with the MP.

This is another Intermountain model.

Soda Ash

The other most common commodity that is likely to have come to New Britain is Soda Ash. This was used as a cleaner/degreaser for steel and other metals prior to pickling in an acid bath. As a base, it was also used to counter acids prior to being released into the local environment or runoff. As a likely source, I've chosen the Solvay Process Division of Allied Chemical and Dye in Syracuse, served by NYC and DL&W. Diamond Alkali in Painesville, OH was served by FP&E (PRR) and NYC, with connections to the B&O and NKP. Another possibility is Pittsburgh Plate Glass Co. in Barberton, via PRR, B&O or Erie.

Soda Ash is a much lighter commodity than sand, so the PRR H32, released by Broadway Limited, is a reasonable option.

I have pictures of the NYC Enterprise-design covered hopper in Berlin. The model is by Rapido.

Spring Mills Depot released this B&O wagon top covered hopper. They are hard to find, but F&C still produces a resin kit.  

Road Salt

Road salt was also starting to be used in larger quantities. Until anti-caking agents were developed in 1956, it couldn't be stockpiled. So it would be delivered on an as-needed basis. I don't have any evidence that New Britain had started to use it during my era, but this was a time where its use across New England was increasing exponentially.

The Restof mine of International Salt Co. in York, NY was the major source for this commodity. It was the largest salt producing mine in the US, and second largest in the world.  Located on the Genessee & Wyoming it had connections to several railroads. But the Erie to Maybrook is the most likely routing to New Britain. DL&W or NYC are other possibilities.

The Erie model is also an Intermountain ACF 1958 cu. ft. car, with the "closed" side design.

Tank Cars: LP Gas

Another common tank car found on model railroads is the LP gas car, because of the Atlas and Kadee models. These two models are of different prototypes. The Atlas car has some accuracy issues, and some of them are lettered for cars that are correct for the Kadee model instead. But it is still a very well detailed model.

The cars in this service are insulated and pressurized. As a result, they have a "bonnet" that housed the loading/unloading connections instead of an expansion dome. The Liquified Petroleum Gas industry was growing in the early '50s. But for many towns like New Britain, it was still not a common commodity.  Coal and Fuel Oil were the predominant home heating fuels. In addition, as Town Gas started to be phased out, the fact that an underground piping system was already in place for many customers made a switch to natural gas easy.

As a result, there are no LP gas dealers in New Britain in my era. But Fafnir Bearing received LP Gas (or possibly the closely related butane) and had several tanks and a dedicated track for tank cars. 

The Fuelane Corporation was promoting their LP gas for cooking. Operating out of Liberty, NY  it seems an appropriate choice for New England. All three of these are Kadee models. 

This is the Atlas model. I think the gray is a little light, but nothing that some weathering can't fix.

The Kadee Warren car is in a simpler scheme.

This is another Atlas model, weathered by Gerry Schaefer. This car is lettered for another commodity hauled in these types of cars - Anhydrous Ammonia. Stanley Works may have used this in furnaces for hardening and tempering steel tools. It was also used as an industrial refrigerant, among other things. Kadee also has cars lettered for Mathieson Chemicals that would be appropriate for this service.

Tank Cars: Industrial Oils

Other petroleum products fall under the category of Refined Petroleum, NOS. 

Lubricating and Cutting Oils

A common product required by the many machine shops and manufacturers of New Britain is lubricating or cutting oil. These could be shipped via box car in 55-gallon drums. It could also be delivered via truck from a regional distributor such as L.F. Powers Co. in Waterbury.  But with the amount required by some of these industries, I think it's reasonable to consider tank cars too.

These types of oil would not require heater coils or insulation and would be carried in general service tank cars. 

The major gasoline and oil companies also produced lubricating oils in their refining processes. This Tangent car is lettered for Sinclair. I particularly wanted to use the Proto 2000 Socony-Vacuum car for its attractive Mobilgas scheme.

Any of the other general service cars, with or without lagging (insulation) or heater coils can be assigned for this service too.

Coal Tar

There is also a petroleum product that I can potentially ship out from New Britain. Town Gas companies, like the New Britain Gas Light Co., generated a lot of coal tar.  This is a byproduct of both the coal gas and carburetted water gas process. In turn, coal tar could be used to make creosote, road or roofing tar, solvents, and some early plastics such as Bakelite.

This Koppers tank car is a Red Caboose model. This model is accurate for only a handful of prototypes for SL-SF, USAX, JTBX, SHPX (for Bakelite), and, conveniently, Koppers. For some reason, though, all of the available models are lettered for the wrong series, and the reporting marks are wrong. It should be KPCX 2500-2522 for the 23 cars built in 1951. I also have a couple of kits to build and I'll correct the reporting marks and road numbers.

Also note that Intermountain has released their Type 27 tank car in the Koppers livery. I don't have any information on the other builds of tank cars, other than this series was insulated, unlike the Intermountain model.

Of the ex-Red Caboose 10,000 gallon welded tank cars that Intermountain produces, the only scheme that is accurate is the USAX (US Army) one. 

Another one they could run is the SHPX 16754-16773 series with heater coils that was leased to the Bakelite division of Union Carbide. They would have received coal tar from town gas operations too. Their factory was in Bound Brook, NJ with another plant opened in Marietta, OH in 1951.

Coal tar was shipped to Koppers Tar & Chemical Division facilities in Everett, MA and Providence, RI. The Everett facility was owned and operated by Barrett in '20s. I didn't find a date for when it switched to a Koppers operation, but it was before my modeling era. 

Baird & McGuire in Holbrook, MA also purchased coal tar from town gas companies in the region. They would use cars from GATX, SHPX, or UTLX. The Bakelite plant in NJ is another potential destination. 

Heater coils were required to be able to unload the thick coal tar. Lagging may or may not be used. Around 80% of the Koppers owned cars were insulated, and all had heater coils.

General service cars with heater coils would also be used in this service.

Tank Cars: Fuel Oil

As noted, gasoline and other road fuel oils accounted for 825 tank cars shipped to CT in 1950.

But Refined Petroleum, NOS accounted for over 4,000 tank cars. Most of these would be for various grades of Fuel Oils. In the Consolidated Freight Classifications from 1943, it falls under the category of 36420 Crude Oil. This includes:

• Crude oil in its natural state...not blended with other products
• Residual Fuel Oil
• Distillate Fuel Oil, not suitable for illuminating purposes
• Gas-oil

What is Fuel Oil, and what is it used for?  There are different grades of Fuel Oil, which is determined by how refined they are. They are numbered from most refined to least refined. The oils with less refinement are also less expensive, but are thicker and have more impurities.

No. 1 Fuel Oil is similar to kerosene and is also known as Range Oil.

No. 2 is used for home and commercial heating and furnaces.

No. 3 was an older type that was not generally used any more. 

No. 4, also known as Bunker A Oil, is used as an industrial heating oil. 

No. 5, or Bunker B Oil, is heavier and requires pre-heating to 170-220 degrees F use in industrial boilers. Tank cars shipping this oil required heater coils and often used insulation.

No. 6, or Bunker C Oil, is heavier still, and requires pre-heating to 220-260 degrees F for use. Used in ships and large industrial boilers. Tank cars shipping this oil required heater coils and often used insulation.

There are other products that fall under this category. Kerosene is similar to Range Oil.  Gas Oil is a distillate between No. 1 and No. 2 Fuel Oil. This was used in the carbureted water gas process and, in my case, will be delivered to New Britain Gas Light Co. 

Many retail dealers advertised Range and Fuel Oil. These would be No. 1 and 2 Fuel oils. These were shipped in general service tank cars with or without insulation. 

Without concrete information as to what grades of Fuel Oil the major industries used, I could waybill for any of the "Bunker" grades. Bunker C is probably likely in the larger industries, since it was the least expensive option.

One of the reasons I think more fuel oil was shipped by rail than gasoline is because of the viscosity of grades 4-6, making it impractical to utilize pipelines. Being less refined, they are more likely to be shipped directly from their source, rather than regional refineries, too. This appears to be the case, as more than 1/4 of the fuel oil shipped to CT by tank car came from Texas. In total, thirteen states shipped Refined Petroleum, NOS to CT via rail in 1950, and almost 3/4 of that was from Texas (1225), Pennsylvania (800), New Jersey (625), and Illinois (425). 

Tank cars filled with Fuel Oil were placarded as "Dangerous." When empty, an Empty Dangerous placard would be applied.

Like gasoline, any "general service" tank car is suitable for these commodities, with some requiring heater coils. The coils were used during unloading, not during transport, to help the product flow better. While connections could sometimes been seen on the ends of the car for these coils, it appears that they were more commonly located under the car. I indicate whether a car is so equipped based on the lettering on the model, or the 1955 Tank Car Capacities Tariff available to purchase here.

Tangent GATC 1917-design radial course tank car. According to the tank car tariff, this car was equipped with heater coils and would be appropriate for the heavier grades of Fuel Oil.

Tangent GATC 1984-design welded tank car. Equipped with heater coils.

Proto 2000 Type 21 tank car. This car is also equipped with heater coils.

Rapido UTLX X-3 tank car. This car is not equipped with heater coils, so would not be used for the heavier grades.

Proto 2000 Type 21 Insulated tank car. Although insulated, it is not equipped with heater coils. Since I model early November, I will probably waybill this for No. 2 Fuel Oil. While it did not require heater coils, it does get more viscous when cold so an insulated tank could be beneficial.

Tangent GATC Three-compartment tank car. Cars like this would often be used to ship multiple grades of products. For example, Gasoline, Range Oil, and No. 2 Fuel Oil. Multiple compartment cars would also be used in L.C.L service to deliver smaller quantities to multiple customers.

A Quick Project

 I recently purchased (a lot of) the Rapido 1937 AAR Box Cars. I'm very happy with the models, although as others have noted there are a few discrepancies in terms of the handbrakes. Rapido tooled nine different handbrakes, with housings. Unfortunately it appears that for some of them the wrong one was used during assembly. Not a huge deal to swap them out.

I also purchased a number of the undecorated ones for use in other projects, and each one comes with all nine of them. Most variations are also available from Kadee or Tangent as separate parts, but there are a couple of unique ones in the Rapido models. Hopefully they will make them available as separate parts.

Of course, I needed a bunch of the New Haven cars.  Thankfully, the initial run is of the 1941 delivery scheme with black doors.

The NHRHTA Convention was this weekend, where I picked up three more of the cars. This is a special run for the Association, and they are the first repaint, with the door now the body color. Although I haven't been able to find any documentation as to when this scheme was introduced, the PS-1 box cars built in 1947-8 were delivered with black doors.

Paint schemes in general went through changes c1949 on the New Haven, so maybe sometime in that period? Even though the 1955 aerial photos I have of New Britain are in black & white, you can see a couple of strings of NH box cars, and a few of the cars still appear to have black doors, but more of them don't.  Photo evidence shows that even some of the PS-1s were repainted by 1954. 

I can use both of course. These cars were built in 1941, My initial mix, of six cars in the delivery scheme and three in the repaint is OK for 1946-7 sessions. But I'm focusing on 1953 as my initial sessions, I need more with the repainted door. 

Fortunately, there's a very simple solution for me, and if you pay attention to the photos above you probably know what it is...

With luck, because of the way my layout is designed, you only see one side of any given car, regardless of where it is on the layout. Since the doors are separate parts on the model, I could swap some doors and have six cars that have one black and one repainted door.

The floor of the model is not glued in place. The uncoupling levers are glued to the coupler box cover, so I unscrewed that so it could remain in place when removing the floor. The bell crank is a separate part from the handbrake rod, so I would recommend working the B-end out first. It is glued, but pops right out. The uncoupling lever is flexible enough that you can work the floor out without removing it.

The door is glued in place, but there are pins that align it and can be pressed from inside the car body. As long as one of those breaks the glue seal I could get a small screwdriver underneath the door and pry it off. Swap a door, reassemble, and now I have six with a repainted door on one side, and black door on the other.