Tim Gilbert wrote: UTLX was owned by the Standard Oil Trust and I gather was still largely owned by the Rockefeller estate after the breakup. As such, it supplied almost all of the tank cars for the s

Few Answers Andrews asked: That's an understatement! Even after the breakup of the Standard Oil trust circa 1911, the "baby Standards" still covered most of the US (plus the Esso of Canada), and there

In Ted C's "Essential Freight Car" December installment, he has a picture of a 40'6" auto frame gon, NYC 698525. I can't say I've ever seen one like it before. Not just as a frame gon, but in general.

Since we're rehashing old subjects, let me air a pet peeve. "Mill gon" is almost as frequently misused as "friction bearing" and "roofwalk". Okay, maybe a distant third, but nonetheless, most modelers

Casinghead, or "natural" gasoline, originally was drawn right off the well head. Its high vapor pressure required an insulated car with higher-than-normal safety valve settings. The insulation helped

http://216.94.16.48/people/index_choice.cfm?id=129&photoid=400748160 How long did the frameless Type Vs last in revenue service? I'd gotten the impression they'd been retrofitted with frames or assign

TT wrote: Not so fast, Tony. From the late '50s into the early '70s a number of pressure tanks were built without themal jacketing, since it was felt the carbody was more than strong enough to resist

"Brian J Carlson asked: Brian, Any freight car whose CAPY was more than three times its LT WT was "required" to have empty/load brakes, where a valve lowered the braking effort when the car was empty

Laramie Jake wrote: Well, on auto loader boxes, it was inportant to know which end was which since the autos could only be loaded one way, and it was certainly easier to know which way to turn upon en

Eric Petersson asked: In most cases it appears they adjusted the diameter to keep the overall car length in the 35' to 40' range, which was the prefered length in those days. Too many longer cars mean

Okay, I give, what's so special about this particular N&W boxcar to justify a resin kit? I they say it's an N&W class B-4, but I can't lay hands on the advertisement. Scott C

Now that Broadway has released their GACX 53'6" express reefer, why should we care? Is it a different prototype than the Walthers model? They look almost identical. The Broadway version costs a couple

I shot one of these some years ago. I'd have to look up the slide, but I'm guessing 1989 in Pennsylvania. Scott Chatfield

Bill Welch asked: It keeps the top corner of the rib out of the eave notch. Scott C

Andy C brings up a good point, namely that many of the early roller bearing trucks had covered bearings. But if memory serves the Pennsy's H33 class (late copies of the ACF 1,958 covered hopper) rode

Detail Associates makes the SP-style wagonwheel antenna for cabooses, but the Burlington used a different antenna with a thick center pole, for lack of a better description. Overland made a wagonwheel

Our own Richard Hendrickson wrote both articles, and many of the photos in the Trix article show cars leased to the several makers of chlorine and painted in rather colorful schemes. My how times have

Gary Ray asked: First off, the ACF Type 27 gets its name from being introduced in 1927, thus it is one year too late for you. And if memory serves, Intermountain's version is a later production model

Now that I'm home from a biz trip, still pondering "chemical tanks," I've had a chance to look at Richard's articles in RMJ about the Atlas (7/03) and Trix (9/04) ICC-105 pressure tanks. To recap, the

Brian Chapman asked: It has to do with the specific commodities they were bought to haul, namely medium-weight hydrocarbons like diesel fuel that have low coefficients of expansion. You see, the probl