I purchased one of these two dome Overland cars and wrote Richard Hendrickson about it. His reply was:

"Steve, the genesis of this Overland model is that when Arndt Gerritsen was doing much of Overland’s prototype research and product development, he found a car bearing used
for storage which still had its reporting marks and numbers: NIPX 8. He photographed and measured the car and made drawings of it. He then contacted me for more prototype information, but I was unable to help much because the latest (1967) ORER I have did not have an entry for NIPX. My best guess is that the car had been owned by the North American Tank Line, which had a number of other reporting marks in the NI?X series. But that’s only a guess, and the NATX entries in the ORERs do not list gallonage or other data which might help in tracking it down.

Once I saw the drawings, however, I recognized that the car was essentially a two compartment version of General American’s 10K gal. insulated single compartment type 30s, and a photo in my collection prompted Overland’s model of the CDLX Western Asphalt single compartment car.

But that doesn’t solve your problem. Years later, I got a poor quality photo that showed a GATX insulated two compartment Type 30, and if I owned that model I’d paint and letter it to correspond with the photo. I think the car in the photo may have been an 8K gallon car, but I also think it’s as close as you’re going to get to finding a prototype for that model in your era. Al Ferguson’s “Black Cat” GATX decal set in black would do the job very nicely. FWIW, that photo is attached.

Paint is Light gray tank, black underframe and trucks. Some GATX cars in bulk wine service were painted aluminum, but most insulated cars that weren’t black were light gray, and that’s what appears to be the color of the car in the photo.


J. Stephen Sandifer