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.

Tank Cars: Gasoline

Now I'm working through tank cars. Like hoppers, these are generally single commodity cars.  But there are more potential commodities, and I need to find sources for each one. Gasoline/oil is the most common commodity still shipped by rail.  But by my era a lot of that traffic is handled via pipelines or water routes to large distribution centers and then delivered by truck.

The 1% waybill studies show that the majority of gasoline coming into Connecticut by rail in the 1950 1% study originated in Rhode Island. The only other state that was captured was Louisiana. There were several possibilities:

Tiverton Oil Terminal in Providence. This served Atlantic, Shell, and Texaco brands.

The East Providence Terminal served Socony-Vacuum (Mobilgas), Gulf, Tide Water, and US Oil Co.  There was also Colonial Beacon Oil Co., which I think was a local distributor.

A third was the Inland Fuel Terminal in Providence. I haven't determined brands it served in this era.

From here, tank cars would be loaded bound for CT and other New England states. It appears that most was bound for local distribution points, such as LP Powers Co in Waterbury, who was a Sinclair and Socony-Vacuum wholesaler, and maybe other brands. From there they would distribute gasoline to local gas stations. I don't know how wide of a radius the trucking served, though.

Would New Britain receive gasoline by rail at all? Hardware City Fuel Co had two sidings and appears to have received Gulf gasoline by tank car. But this industry is off-layout, unfortunately. 

Berson Brothers had a siding for receiving coal and also advertised Esso gasoline. They have a number of tanks on-site, although it's not clear that they had facilities for unloading via tank car. But I'll go ahead and use it for that purpose. Esso is an ex-Standard Oil company, and would typically be delivered in standard black UTLX tank cars.

This is a Rapido X-3 tank car that I'll assign as a car in gasoline service. For an ex-Standard Oil company, UTLX cars are the most common.

Some of the maps show that the city of New Britain had gas tanks on the site served by rail. These would be for city trucks and equipment. There is a siding, but I don't know what it received by rail so gasoline is a possibility. 

This is a Proto 2000 ACF Type 21 insulated tank car. Gasoline did not have to be moved in insulated cars, but it could be. I could use this to service the town siding, or in through trains.  The placards provided in the model are correct for my era, with a red "Dangerous" on a white background with the rest of the text black. Prior to 1941 it would have stated "Inflammable" instead of "Dangerous."

What type of gasoline was used in this era?  Most cars and trucks used "regular" gasoline. Premium gas was used for many (most?) small or medium trucks. 

White Gas, and some other fuel types were still used in some older vehicles, but I don't know how common it was.

What about diesel fuel? The 1950 1% waybill study indicates 475 tank cars of gasoline were shipped to CT annually. It also listed 450 tank cars of Fuel Road Oils, NOS. This likely includes Diesel Fuel, and might include White Gas. 

Diesel fuel was used in semi trucks from Cummins, Detroit Diesel (GMC) and Mack starting in the 1930s.  Buses followed in the 1940s. The engines were too large for small or medium trucks. Trucking companies, city bus terminals, and sometimes large industries would have diesel pumps for their trucks or buses. Otherwise, highway truck stops were where diesel trucks would fill up. Diesel fuel is not listed in the city directories or phone books of the era. So I'm not sure whether any of the rail served industries received it. I suspect a lot, if not all, came via truck from the regional distribution centers.

Any of these types of gasoline could be hauled in tank cars, and multi-compartment tank cars were often used to deliver multiple grades or types.

Hoppers

All of my ops sessions to this point have been the same basic session. I have a group of waybills I created years ago for testing, and a number have been lost along the way. Thing is, this hasn't really been noticeable during a session, at least not as far as I can tell. Even from the same starting point, the operators handle the movements differently each time.

Part of me has wanted to compile a "full" list of potential sources and destinations for each car I own, and also a variety of waybills for each one so that they'll never be running the same route more than once. The reality is, this largely isn't necessary.

This process started due to an entirely different project. When I was looking to order some parts from Bowser, I noticed they were selling coal loads for hoppers made by a variety of manufacturers. So I decided to order a few to see how they looked. In the meantime, I decided to start adding real coal on top of the plastic loads that came with a bunch of hoppers. I also modified those loads to they would sit deeper into the hopper and the new coal wouldn't sit too high. I found I could modify Kadee loads to fit the Intermountain hoppers. It also led to an assessment of what cars I still wanted to acquire. As a result, I now have the complete hopper roster I'd like, but quite a few are still in kit form.

New Britain Yard looks a lot like I'm modeling coal country here. This is about half the roster. I need to finish the resin kits, lettering the MTH USRA hoppers, and modifying the Bowser "fishbelly" hoppers. Until then, the mix is a bit off.

The Bowser loads are real coal, and look like an anthracite load to me. That's great, because the majority of the retail coal should be anthracite. But for the industries I wanted the bituminous loads to look different. I have some real coal (I think) that came from Scenic Express years ago. That looks shiny like anthracite. I also had some Smith & Sons cinders left (which I love), and that looked more dusty, like bituminous. I found some old Highball coal but it's a bit more grey than I'd like. I also think it's too clean.  Bituminous is very dusty compared to anthracite. 

In this photo, the Bowser load is the lower left. One of my anthracite loads is the upper left.

The lower right is the Smith & Sons (I'd love one more bottle, I'm out).

The upper right is Highball Coal. 

So for the waybills, I need to identify sources and match them to industries in New Britain. I hunted down a lot of industry publications, like the Pennsylvania Anthracite or Bituminous Annual Reports published annually during that era by the state, along with railroad shipping guides and other similar documents. I started by looking at the retail brands sold in New Britain and locating the largest collieries for those brands. I also looked for the largest non-branded ones for additional suppliers.

Because the waybills will only be handled by the agent at a desk, I'm making them full sized. As much as a huge spreadsheet and loads of waybills might be interesting, I really only one per car to start. So that's what I'm doing, creating one bill for each car that I have in service. Not all will be used every session.

I currently have 39 hoppers ready for service.

Anthracite

1 - D&H (Kadee)

5 - Erie (Broadway Limited, Intermountain, JJL)

2 - Reading (Kadee)

Bituminous

6 - B&O (Broadway Limited, MTH, Proto 2000)

1 - Berwind (Rapido)

1 - C&I (Intermountain)

3 - C&O (Intermountain, MTH)

1 - CRR (Intermountain)

1 - Montour (Intermountain)

1 - N&W (Broadway Limited)

1 - O&W (Rapido)

Either

5 - NYC (Broadway Limited, Kadee, Tichy/Intermountain)

11 - PRR (MTH, Rapido)

The Tichy/Intermountain NYC hopper is incorrectly painted black, though...

In theory, any of the hoppers could be carrying any type of coal. But I'm assuming that most will be loaded on their home road, or close, so I'm basing the probable loads on that.

On-Layout Industries in New Britain receiving Anthracite

• Berson Brothers
• City Coal & Wood
• D&K Coal
• Household Fuel
• Shurberg & Sons
• Stanley Svea

On-Layout Industries in New Britain receiving Bituminous

• Landers, Frary & Clark
• New Britain Gas Light Co
• P&F Corbin
• Parkmeadow Lofts
• Russell & Erwin
• Stanley Works

That's twelve industries.  Many of these will receive more than one load at a time, plus there will be a number empties on-layout to pull. So I suspect I'll need 20-30 during a session, although not every car will necessarily move. During a session where there are multiple through trains (up to six) I will need a few more.

Can I Buy You A Beer?

Here's a little project I finished up recently. Greenway Models is a company that has produced a lot of custom painted Athearn models. I learned that they made a model for Cremo Brewery when I saw one at the New Britain Industrial Museum. One finally turned up and, even better, it was still in kit form. So I decided to upgrade it to my layout standards.

The sides are separate pieces, with a cutout above the door.  The roof and ends are molded as a single part, and snap into that location. So that needs to be addressed. I also wanted to replace the molded on parts, and conveniently the paint scheme doesn't have any lettering in those locations.

My initial approach was simply to shave them off. But I also needed to determine what I would use to kitbash it. Looking for a potential donor in my stash I decided to go with the Branchline reefer. I did some test fitting, and found it was nearly a perfect match in height and length for the sides. The sides were slightly thinner. 

It occurred to me that I could cut the sides just inside the ladder and grab irons, and splice the end portions of the Branchline sides. This included the mounting pins. This also meant that I'd gain the strap braces that secure the ends on the prototype, and the mounting locations for the ladders. I also filled in the missing portion above the door with strip styrene. In hindsight, I should have scribed deeper boards in the Branchline portions to more closely match the Athearn side. 

The rest of the model is the Branchline kit as designed. I touched up the sides with a blend of Vallejo white and off-white and the rest of the car is painted using Stynylrez black primer. This matched the scheme of the Greenway model, although I didn't paint the sill yellow.

It's a fictional car, but a fun addition to the roster. I couldn't fit the brewery on the layout, but operationally it was served out of Whiting St. Yard by one of the Holyoke freights. So it can be dropped off overnight or in the morning, to be taken back off the layout in the afternoon. 

Cremo Brewery closed in 1955, but Alvarium Brewery in New Britain has resurrected the brand.  I think I'll have one.