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TANK CARS
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joel norman <mec-bml@...>
Ive another tank car question:
Purchased 2 Atlas 11,000 gal tank cars lettered for Homgas,one based at North Monson Mass and the other in Housatonic Mass Any history of this comapany?and are the HCGX report marks correct Also purchased 2 ATH SHPX tank cars lettered for SilverFox Lard Co. Carlstadt NJ SHPX 9119/9123 These good? Thanks Joel Norman ''Eastern Maine Rly'' |
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Frederick Freitas <prrinvt@...>
Joel,
Homgas is correct lettering and paint. as are the locations. Pictures have appeared on this list with these cars behind steam on the Rutland, IIRC. Can't help with the lard cars. Fred Freitas joel norman <mec-bml@...> wrote: Ive another tank car question: Purchased 2 Atlas 11,000 gal tank cars lettered for Homgas,one based at North Monson Mass and the other in Housatonic Mass Any history of this comapany?and are the HCGX report marks correct Also purchased 2 ATH SHPX tank cars lettered for SilverFox Lard Co. Carlstadt NJ SHPX 9119/9123 These good? Thanks Joel Norman ''Eastern Maine Rly'' |
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Richard Hendrickson
On Nov 21, 2007, at 6:58 AM, Frederick Freitas wrote:
Homgas is correct lettering and paint. as are the locations. PicturesFred is essentially correct – however, there are potential problems in modeling these cars. First of all Homgas was a very small tank car operator, with only one car in 1945 and only five cars by 1953 and later. So one car might have turned up in Maine, but more than one? Probably not. Second, I'm inclined to be suspicious of the car numbers Atlas used, as the Homgas numbering system was peculiar, to say the least; in 1/53 their five cars were numbered 63, 70, 119, 214, and 978. Finally, one or more of their lower numbered cars were built to AC&F's earlier ICC-105 design, with longer, smaller diameter tanks rather than the later design modeled by Atlas. I have two photos. HGCX 119, built in 10/45, was an earlier design car. HGCX 214, built in 4/48, was a later design car as modeled by Atlas. If the car numbers were assigned sequentially according to delivery date, then HGCX 978 was probably the only other later-design Homgas car. joel norman <mec-bml@...> wrote:I have builder's photos of SHPX 9120 (built 10/29) and 9125 (built 12/29), both early Type 27 8K gal. cars, which were leased to the Silver Fox Lard Co. when new. It's very doubtful, however, that more than a very few cars were leased to Silver Fox, or that the leases lasted very long. In fact, the likelihood that those cars were still leased to Silver Fox in the post-WW-II period is almost certainly zero. Aside from that fact, Athearn's single dome tank cars (as has been pointed out often on this list) aren't even close to being prototypical except for the fuel oil cars owned by the Southern Pacific and Western Pacific. They scale out to 12,500 gals., way bigger than the SHPX 8K gal. cars, their dome height is too low, the three safety valves are wrong (should be two, differently spaced), the tanks have rivet courses in the wrong places (owing to the fact that they were re-tooled from the even more unprototypical Athearn 3-dome tank car), etc. Many of us on this list wouldn't even consider the Athearn models as acceptable stand-ins. Intermountain does make accurate models of the AC&F 8K gal. Type 27s, and SHPX cars of that type might well have turned up in Maine, but not lettered for Silver Fox. And I'll bet Joel thought he was just asking a couple of simple questions! Richard Hendrickson [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] |
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Anthony Thompson <thompson@...>
joel norman wrote:
Also purchased 2 ATH SHPX tank cars lettered for SilverFox Lard Co.Richard Hendrickson has amply explained about these cars. Athearn, bless 'em, have undertaken to revive interest in several of their old car body moldings by putting "correct" or prototypical paint schemes on them, whether or not that scheme ever existed on a body anything like the particular Athearn car. I guess their view is, "at least the lettering is correct." For most on this list, that ain't gonna cut it. Tony Thompson Editor, Signature Press, Berkeley, CA 2906 Forest Ave., Berkeley, CA 94705 www.signaturepress.com (510) 540-6538; fax, (510) 540-1937; e-mail, thompson@... Publishers of books on railroad history |
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Frederick Freitas <prrinvt@...>
Richard,
Thanks for the input, as I am still learning the tank car building side of the prototype. To think that for years I thought the USRA rebuilds were the most difficult to ferret out info about. Tank cars are a whole new world. Thanks again Richard ! Fred Freitas Richard Hendrickson <rhendrickson@...> wrote: On Nov 21, 2007, at 6:58 AM, Frederick Freitas wrote: Homgas is correct lettering and paint. as are the locations. PicturesFred is essentially correct – however, there are potential problems in modeling these cars. First of all Homgas was a very small tank car operator, with only one car in 1945 and only five cars by 1953 and later. So one car might have turned up in Maine, but more than one? Probably not. Second, I'm inclined to be suspicious of the car numbers Atlas used, as the Homgas numbering system was peculiar, to say the least; in 1/53 their five cars were numbered 63, 70, 119, 214, and 978. Finally, one or more of their lower numbered cars were built to AC&F's earlier ICC-105 design, with longer, smaller diameter tanks rather than the later design modeled by Atlas. I have two photos. HGCX 119, built in 10/45, was an earlier design car. HGCX 214, built in 4/48, was a later design car as modeled by Atlas. If the car numbers were assigned sequentially according to delivery date, then HGCX 978 was probably the only other later-design Homgas car. joel norman wrote:I have builder's photos of SHPX 9120 (built 10/29) and 9125 (built 12/29), both early Type 27 8K gal. cars, which were leased to the Silver Fox Lard Co. when new. It's very doubtful, however, that more than a very few cars were leased to Silver Fox, or that the leases lasted very long. In fact, the likelihood that those cars were still leased to Silver Fox in the post-WW-II period is almost certainly zero. Aside from that fact, Athearn's single dome tank cars (as has been pointed out often on this list) aren't even close to being prototypical except for the fuel oil cars owned by the Southern Pacific and Western Pacific. They scale out to 12,500 gals., way bigger than the SHPX 8K gal. cars, their dome height is too low, the three safety valves are wrong (should be two, differently spaced), the tanks have rivet courses in the wrong places (owing to the fact that they were re-tooled from the even more unprototypical Athearn 3-dome tank car), etc. Many of us on this list wouldn't even consider the Athearn models as acceptable stand-ins. Intermountain does make accurate models of the AC&F 8K gal. Type 27s, and SHPX cars of that type might well have turned up in Maine, but not lettered for Silver Fox. And I'll bet Joel thought he was just asking a couple of simple questions! Richard Hendrickson [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] Yahoo! Groups Links [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] |
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Richard Dermody <ddermody@...>
On Nov 21, 2007, at 12:00 PM, Richard Hendrickson wrote:
Fred is essentially correct – however, there are potential problems inThere is additional information that both complements and contradicts some of what Richard has said. This small company attracted my attention because of the area of operation and the peculiar lettering and numbering of its cars. I have photos of two of the other cars Richard mentions in the 1953 ORER, cars 978 and 70. The final car, HGCX 63, is pictured on page 102 of Ed Kaminski's AC&F book, so photographic evidence exists for all five HGCX cars. HGCX 70 is definitely an early ICC-105 (Blt 9-44) and HGCX 978 is the later style. Based on Richard's description of his photos and what I've stated above it appears the five cars were as as follows: Early ICC-105 HGCX 70 (confirmed by my photo) HGCX 119 (confirmed by Richard's photo) Late ICC-105 HGCX 63 (confirmed by AC&F book) HGCX 214 (confirmed by Richard's photo) HGCX 978 (confirmed by my photo) Any logic(?) of the car numbering sequence defies my analysis. Add in the fact that by 1962 (yes, outside the scope of the list, but the closest ORER I have to the cutoff), the company also operated three cars under ABX reporting marks, numbered 189, 431 and 5645! The company apparently served New England and parts of New York from Palmer, Mass. and later Great Barrington, Mass. In 1962, they listed their home points as: Home Points: Athol, Mass.; Canton, N.Y.; Fairlee, Vt.; Georgetown, Conn.; Grafton, N. Y.; Grasmere, N. H.; Hudson Falls, NY.; Milton, Pa.; New Bedford, Mass.; Nortb Monson, Mass.; North Windham, Conn.; Oxford, Me.; Pittsfield, Me.; Plainville, Conn.; Poughkeepsie, N. Y.; Saranac Lake, N. Y.; Uxbridge, Mass.; Van Deusenville, Mass.; Jan., 1963 Please note that both Oxford and Pittsfield in Maine were listed. One photo I have shows 978 and 70 coupled together, in Oxford, Maine in 1957, so they might have made it to Maine more numerously than Richard thought likely. So, of the original numbers Atlas released (1073-1_3), #70 is bogus, while 63 and 978 are appropriate for the car body. If they'd modeled #214 instead of #70, they would have hit 100%. Dick |
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Garth Groff <ggg9y@...>
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? Kind regards, Garth G. Groff |
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Richard Hendrickson
On Nov 26, 2007, at 5:26 AM, Garth Groff wrote:
Richard,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 |
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Garth Groff <ggg9y@...>
Richard,
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Thanks much. You are right, it isn't much to go on, but your response was extremely interesting. Kind regards, Garth G. Groff Richard Hendrickson wrote: On Nov 26, 2007, at 5:26 AM, Garth Groff wrote: |
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