On Nov 26, 2007, at 5:26 AM, Garth Groff wrote:

Richard,

Can you offer any suggestions about who among the major operators might
have owned AC&F type 11 cars in the late steam era. I bought F&C's 8K
model with AOX decals, but wondered if any such cars might have been in
SHPX, GATX, NATX or UTLX fleets? If so, any suggestions on numbers?

To the best of my knowledge, the only major tank car leasing firms that purchased 8K Type 11s new were NATX and (surprisingly) GATX (SHPX wasn't formed by AC&F until the mid-1920s). I have a 1914 builder's photo of NATX 350 but, unfortunately, NATX's ORER entries provide no information which would make it possible to know how many of these cars they owned, how long they lasted, or how they were numbered in later years. I also have a 1915 builder's photo of GATX 4397, which is shown in the 3/28 ORER as one of 149 cars in the 4350-4874 series - but, again, the later ORER entries are largely worthless in trying to determine which of these cars (if any) were still in service after WW II under their original numbers. GATX probably acquired some additional cars of this type second hand in the 1930s when they were buying up privately owned tank car fleets right and left, but I have no photographic evidence. UTLX also picked up some Type 11s in the same fashion; I have a (very fuzzy) in-service photo of UTLX 78305 and there seem to have been a sizable number of similar Class Z cars scattered through the 71000-78499 number series. California-based private owners with 8K Type 11s included Associated (AOX 900-933) and Union Oil, though Union's 1930s renumbering made it almost impossible to discover what the number series was in later years. Texaco also owned a bunch - I have a builder's photo of TCX 2777 and an in-service shot of TCX 2792 - but during and after WW II most of the TCX cars were absorbed into the GATX fleet where it's anybody's guess how they were numbered. This probably isn't as much help as you'd hoped for, but it's the best I can do.

Richard Hendrickson