Folks -

I'm doing research on cars that are listed in various train consists on the PRR's Delmarva Division between 1955-1956. After looking at the 1953 ORER, I was able to narrow down what number series these tanks below to, but I don't have too much information on them other than the series and their pounds capacity.

What I need to know is:

(1) Prototype info on these cars; and

(2) Good HO Scale models to represent these cars.

Here are the cars and when they were listed:

GATX 2369; AAR Class TM; 80,000 lbs.; 1800-2899 series; empty on 8/27/56; no consignee, headed to Lewes, DE.

GATX 7156; AAR Class TM; 80,000 lbs.; 7000-7999 series; empty on 8/27/56; no consignee, headed to Lewes, DE.

GATX 25319; AAR Class TM; 80,000 lbs.; 25276-25411 series; empty on 8/27/56; going to Seacoast Products in Lewes, DE.

GATX 64899; AAR Class TPI; 80,000 lbs.; 7000-7999 series; loaded with petroleum gas on 3/8/56; going to S.P. Gas Co. in Rehoboth, DE.

Regarding Lewes, DE: there was a large fish factory that probably had fish oil/meal as a by-product (Lewes - pronounced "Lewis" is located where the Delaware Bay begins and the Atlantic Ocean ends). I am guessing that's where the cars were headed. The only other place that could use tank cars was the U.S. Army base in Lewes - I doubt they would be receiving empty tanks (but I've been known to be wrong in the past).

Any and all help would be appreciated. This is just the tip of the iceberg - in the future I've got questions on ISX, SHPX, and UTLX tank cars, but I'll leave this conversation just to these four GATX cars.

Thanks in advance,

Joe Walder

Joe,

You would pick the hardest first <VBG>. Based on the 80,000 lbs, these all appear to be 8,000 gallon tanks. Unless someone has a GATC roster listing tanks by number and builder, you're stuck with making some assumptions. While GATC did buy some cars from other builders, the majority of their cars were built to their own designs. It is my understanding that number series did not necessarily reflect purity of design or builder, but just capacity. Richard Hendrickson has given clinics on GATC cars, and among the issues would be the use of welded frames and tanks on cars build during and post WWII respectively. Additionally, he stated that many GATC cars were not used for petroleum, and were ICC 203 designs, with frangible disks rather than safety valves. If cars were pre-WWII designs, it is likely that they were the GATC type 30. GATX 64899 is unique amongst the group in that it is most likely either an ICC 105 insulated car.

Regards
Bruce Smith
Auburn, AL

Bruce -
 
Yeah, that's what I thought (I'd have some difficult cars to determine their builder and prototype info).  The listings I have for the "pounds capacity" came from the 1953 ORER, so that leaves it wide-open for determination of exactly what each car was in each series.
 
I also noticed that I typo'd the group that GATX 64899 was from.  I listed it as "7000-7999" series when it should be from the 64800-64949 series.  Sorry about that.
 
Any idea on suitable HO Scale cars for any of these (whether it's a model of the car or a good stand-in)?
 
Thanks again,
 
Joe

Joe,

For models of GATC built cars in HO, there are a couple of choices. Sunshine now has a type 30 kit that has been done in a number of markings. The type 30 was also brought in in brass by Red Caboose/ Drake a few years back and Overland, even longer ago. Ted Culotta (Speedwitch) was talking about bringing out a type 30 a couple of years ago, but has not released it yet. There has been talk of a commercial plastic type 30 being released, but so far, no announcements. Other than that, I don't know of any cars, although one could adapt the Athearn "chemical tank" with a Precision hood and perhaps a Sunshine frame to make the ICC 105 car.

Regards
Bruce Smith
Auburn, AL

Bruce -
 
OK, thanks.  At least that's a starting point for HO Scale cars.
 
Joe

On May 14, 2010, at 6:29 AM, Bruce Smith wrote:

Joe,

You would pick the hardest first <VBG>. Based on the 80,000 lbs,
these all appear to be 8,000 gallon tanks. Unless someone has a GATC
roster listing tanks by number and builder, you're stuck with making
some assumptions. While GATC did buy some cars from other builders,
the majority of their cars were built to their own designs. It is my
understanding that number series did not necessarily reflect purity
of design or builder, but just capacity. Richard Hendrickson has
given clinics on GATC cars, and among the issues would be the use of
welded frames and tanks on cars build during and post WWII
respectively. Additionally, he stated that many GATC cars were not
used for petroleum, and were ICC 203 designs, with frangible disks
rather than safety valves. If cars were pre-WWII designs, it is
likely that they were the GATC type 30. GATX 64899 is unique amongst
the group in that it is most likely either an ICC 105 insulated car.

Regards
Bruce Smith
Auburn, AL

On May 13, 2010, at 11:30 PM, ow802 wrote:

Folks -

I'm doing research on cars that are listed in various train
consists on the PRR's Delmarva Division between 1955-1956. After
looking at the 1953 ORER, I was able to narrow down what number
series these tanks below to, but I don't have too much information
on them other than the series and their pounds capacity.

Joe Walder

Bruce's response is generally right, as far as it goes. To the best
of my knowledge, GATC trashed all of their photos and documentation
on steam and transition era tank cars years ago, and apart from a
limited number of builder's photos that have survived in museum
collections, about all we have to go on are in-service photos. To
make matters worse, the GATC entries in the ORERs are extremely
sketchy, with many different cars lumped into the same number series,
so even when there is a photo of one car in the series, you can't
assume that other cars in the series were the same - in fact, it's
almost certain that they were not. And I'll take exception to one of
Bruce's points, that pre-WWII cars were probably Type 30s. In fact,
GATC built thousands of tanks cars for its own service between the
teens and the late '20s before the Type 30 design was developed, and
most of them survived into the mid-'50s. In addition, GATC's strong
financial position at the time of the great depression enabled it to
buy the tank car fleets of many cash-strapped owner-shippers and
lease them back, which brought into the General American fleet many
cars from other builders - Standard Tank Car, American Car & Foundry,
Standard Steel Car, etc. Right now, I'm expecting out of town guests
for the weekend, but when I have time I'll see what I can find about
the cars whose numbers Joe cites. But the best I'll be able to do
are probably educated guesses.


Richard Hendrickson

Richard -
 
Yeah, I kinda liked reading the description of each tank car series in the 1953 ORER.  Could it get any more general here (sorry the bad pun towards the "G" in GATX)?  Almost every other car description in the ORER helps you nail-down (almost) what a car would look like.  That's not the same for tank cars.  It makes for really frustrating research.
 
Joe

On 2010-05-14, at 12:24 PM, Richard Hendrickson wrote:

And I'll take exception to one of
Bruce's points, that pre-WWII cars were probably Type 30s. In fact,
GATC built thousands of tanks cars for its own service between the
teens and the late '20s before the Type 30 design was developed, and
most of them survived into the mid-'50s.

GATC was also a partner (with Canadian Car & Foundry) in Canadian General Transit, formed in 1932. In the post-WW II years, a good number of these older GATC cars apparently found their way to the CGTX fleet, including a large number of 1917-built cars. I don't know how much of an impact this had on the composition of the GATC fleet itself during this era, but one presumes that there would have been a decline in older cars with GATX markings.

Ian Cranstone
Osgoode, Ontario, Canada
lamontc@...

Bruce Smith wrote:

Richard Hendrickson has given clinics on GATC cars . . . he stated that many GATC cars were not used for petroleum, and were ICC 203 designs, with frangible disks rather than safety valves.

I sure wish Richard hadn't made that mis-statement--now it's getting repeated. There in fact is NOT any such thing as an ICC 203. The 203 designation is for ARA and AAR cars only, and is for non- regulated commodities. Wine cars were usually AAR 203 or AAR 203W. Check any ORER.

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

Tony -
 
OK, thanks.  I hope that you and Richard remain on good terms (and I hope I didn't open up a can of worms here)?
 
Joe




[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

On May 14, 2010, at 9:49 AM, Ian Cranstone wrote:

On 2010-05-14, at 12:24 PM, Richard Hendrickson wrote:

And I'll take exception to one of
Bruce's points, that pre-WWII cars were probably Type 30s. In fact,
GATC built thousands of tanks cars for its own service between the
teens and the late '20s before the Type 30 design was developed, and
most of them survived into the mid-'50s.

GATC was also a partner (with Canadian Car & Foundry) in Canadian
General Transit, formed in 1932. In the post-WW II years, a good
number of these older GATC cars apparently found their way to the
CGTX fleet, including a large number of 1917-built cars. I don't
know how much of an impact this had on the composition of the GATC
fleet itself during this era, but one presumes that there would
have been a decline in older cars with GATX markings.

Not enough to make much of a difference, Ian. The CGTX fleet
consisted of 1243 cars in 7/43 and 2472 in 1/53, and some of those
additional cars were new. The GATC fleet in 1/53 was 45,632, by
comparison with which the cars transferred to CGTX were insignificant
in number.

Richard Hendrickson

On May 14, 2010, at 10:31 AM, Joe Walder wrote:

Tony -

OK, thanks. I hope that you and Richard remain on good terms (and
I hope I didn't open up a can of worms here)?

Joe, any inquiry about GATC tank cars opens up a huge can of worms.
However, Tony is absolutely correct that the designation for wine
cars, cotton oil cars, etc. was AAR 203, not ICC 203, since they
carried non-regulatory commodities and thus were not subject to ICC
regulation. I now know better, but unfortunately mistakes made in
print (or in clinics) tend to live on, as in the case of Bruce
Smith's post. Bruce, you owe me and Tony a beer at Naperville.

Richard Hendrickson

Richard wrote:
Bruce, you owe me and Tony a beer at Naperville.

Richard Hendrickson
 
Please no fire alarm this year, that sucked!
 
Brian Carlson

On May 14, 2010, at 2:36 PM, Brian Carlson wrote:

Richard wrote:
Bruce, you owe me and Tony a beer at Naperville.

Richard Hendrickson

Please no fire alarm this year, that sucked!

Brian Carlson

And how is it that I end up owing Richard and Tony a beer, EVERY year? <G>

Regards
Bruce

Bruce F. Smith
Auburn, AL
http://www.vetmed.auburn.edu/index.pl/bruce_f._smith2

"Some days you are the bug, some days you are the windshield."
__
/ &#92;
__<+--+>________________&#92;__/___ ________________________________
|- ______/ O O &#92;_______ -| | __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ |
| / 4999 PENNSYLVANIA 4999 &#92; | ||__||__||__||__||__||__||__||__||
|/_____________________________&#92;|_|________________________________|
| O--O &#92;0 0 0 0/ O--O | 0-0-0 0-0-0

No one has mentioned Ted Culotta'a Tank Car Reference Manual. It has a
number of GATX tank car photos from the various phases of GA designs. And
there is a nice article by Richard H in RMJ August 1996 on kitbashing a
basic GATX tank car from the Athearn blue box tank car.



Regards,

Steve Hile



_____

From: STMFC@... [mailto:STMFC@...] On Behalf Of Joe
Walder
Sent: Friday, May 14, 2010 8:36 AM
To: STMFC@...
Subject: Re: [STMFC] Need Help with GATX Tank Cars from the 1950s





Bruce -

Yeah, that's what I thought (I'd have some difficult cars to determine their
builder and prototype info). The listings I have for the "pounds capacity"
came from the 1953 ORER, so that leaves it wide-open for determination of
exactly what each car was in each series.

I also noticed that I typo'd the group that GATX 64899 was from. I listed
it as "7000-7999" series when it should be from the 64800-64949 series.
Sorry about that.

Any idea on suitable HO Scale cars for any of these (whether it's a model of
the car or a good stand-in)?

Thanks again,

Joe

On May 13, 2010, at 9:30 PM, ow802 wrote:

Folks -

I'm doing research on cars that are listed in various train
consists on the PRR's Delmarva Division between 1955-1956. After
looking at the 1953 ORER, I was able to narrow down what number
series these tanks below to, but I don't have too much information
on them other than the series and their pounds capacity.

Joe, I've finally found time to do a bit of research in my photo
files. Here's what I found.

What I need to know is:

(1) Prototype info on these cars; and

(2) Good HO Scale models to represent these cars.

Here are the cars and when they were listed:

GATX 2369; AAR Class TM; 80,000 lbs.; 1800-2899 series; empty on
8/27/56; no consignee, headed to Lewes, DE.

I have photos of GATX 2175 and 2323. Both were 8K gal. non-insulated
cars built in 11-25 with three-horizontal-course tanks and were
assigned to and painted for American Maize Products ("Amaizo").
Aside from the paint jobs, they are distinctive because the domes
(but not the tanks) were insulated.

GATX 7156; AAR Class TM; 80,000 lbs.; 7000-7999 series; empty on
8/27/56; no consignee, headed to Lewes, DE.

I have photos of GATX 7280 and 7284, both 8K gal. GATC cars built in
11-24 with three-horizontal-course tanks. They were in corn syrup
and liquid sugar service. I understand that HO scale models of these
cars in resin are being developed by Sunshine. I also have a photo
of GATX 7635, an 8K gal. car built in 3-18 with a 6 radial course
tank. A model of this car is available in resin from Southern Car &
Foundryl

GATX 25319; AAR Class TM; 80,000 lbs.; 25276-25411 series; empty on
8/27/56; going to Seacoast Products in Lewes, DE.

I have no photos of cars in this series.

GATX 64899; AAR Class TPI; 80,000 lbs.; 7000-7999 series; loaded
with petroleum gas on 3/8/56; going to S.P. Gas Co. in Rehoboth, DE.

I have a photo of GATX 64866 at New London, CT in 9-51. At that
time it was assigned to Phillips Petroleum and had a "Philgas" logo
on the tank. It was a 10,500 gal. ICC-105 LPG car. I assume that
GATX 64899 was of the same design. These cars can be modeled with an
old blue box Athearn "chemical" tank car by upgrading the underframe
and brake gear; removing the oversize valve casing, platform, and
railing; and replacing the valve casing with a scale size part from
Precision Scale (part #31005).

I can send scans of any or all of these photos if you would find them
helpful.

Richard Hendrickson