Now that Tangent has released the plain black GATX version of the Type 17, the possibility of building a credible fleet of many types of GA tank cars is near to realization. Does anyone have a fleet breakdown of the various types of GA tanks in the early 1950s?

-Phil

The GATX cars released all have k brakes. 

Phil,

Bruce,

I was unaware that this was a minority car. It just appeared to me that because of the varied types of STC cars from SC&F and GATC cars from Tangent that a variegated fleet could be composed. For my modeling locale (Buffalo area), it just so happens that most of the tanks that Tangent has released are needed based on photographic evidence and freight consists, but I realize that the majority of modelers may not be modeling areas near electrochemical facilities. At any rate, I do not know much about the fleet breakdown of GATX cars, which is why I asked.

-Phil

I'm with Bruce on this.  In addition to the (good luck!) Sunshine Type 30s, there are no models for the many 1920s cars with longitudinal course.  We see them in photos, we know they existed, but.....

I have never seen anything that would readily yield a systematic breakdown of the GATX fleet (I am assuming that what is meant by GA here).  There may be some clues in the various tariffs, but I think they will be on the ambiguous side.  Between 1930 and 1935, the GATX fleet almost doubled, and then increased by another ~50% by 1945.  They swallowed up  smaller, struggling leasing companies during the depression, and purchase-lease back arrangements occurred as well.  Thus, the ~38,000 cars owned by GA in 1945 were likely something of a dog's breakfast, not easily sorted out.

This is in stark contrast to the UTLX fleet which, as Steve Hile's book tells us, is quite well documented throughout the steam era.
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Dave Parker
Swall Meadows, CA

Dave,

If I'm not mistaken, David Lehlbach has identified the possibility of modeling at least some of the 1920s longitudinal-course cars by mating an Intermountain tank with a Tangent Type 17 underframe. I have not tried this and should probably look at more photos to ascertain the details of the longitudinal-course cars.

-Phil

Phil, that may be possible, but I haven't tried it either.  My comments pertained to RTRs and out-of-the-box kits.

Even with the Tangent 1917 design cars, I don't have a good sense of how many of them existed relative to things like the UTLX class X and X-3 designs.  There are some clues in the Railway Age annual tabulations of car orders, but even those require guesswork as to exactly what was built for each buyer.  We do know that the 1917 design did not last long, something on the order of 3-4 years before it was superseded by the longitudinal-course cars.
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Dave Parker
Swall Meadows, CA

First is not GATX. It’s CGTX. The poster was asking about GATX. 

Phil,

Thanks guys. It appears that the GATX fleet was much more varied than I initially thought. Reexamination of the various solid blocks of GATX tank cars in many consists is probably in order.

-Phil

FYI, Tangent has released two tank sizes of these GATX type 17 prototypes; 8,000 and 10,000 gallon versions. 

Eric Hansmann said:

"FYI, Tangent has released two tank sizes of these GATX type 17 prototypes; 8,000 and 10,000 gallon versions".

Actually Eric, we have released three.  Aside from the two non-insulated tank body versions you mention, we have also released an insulated tank body version:
Info here: https://www.tangentscalemodels.com/general-american-8000-gallon-1917-design-insulated-radial-course-tank-car/
Sold out cars here: https://www.tangentscalemodels.com/product-category/sold-out/sold-out-general-american-1917-design-8000-gallon-insulated-tank-car/

Thank you,

David Lehlbach
Tangent Scale Models

Bruce,

Um, how do you attribute the GATC 1917-Design to being "a minority car?"  I am curious, do you have any numbers to back that statement up? 

Best wishes,

David Lehlbach
Tangent Scale Models

Hi David,

Well, I do have some numbers that may or may not shed any light on the question of the abundance of GA 1917 design cars.

First, a reminder that the 1917 design represented the advent of MCB/ARA Class III cars  built by GA.  The "double rivet" Class III cars became the required standard on May 1, 1917.

Second, a distinction needs to be made between cars built by GATC, and the subset built for use by the GATX leasing arm (at least initially). 

Railway Age published annual tabulations of car orders (not deliveries) at this time, and I have teased out the numbers for GATC-built tank cars as follows:

1917  284
1918  2499   (555 went to GATC)
1919  869
1920  5386  2104 of these "not reported in detail" i.e, buyer not identified
1921  41

Total  9079   (for comparison, there were ca. 7000 and 19,000 UTLX Class X and X-3 cars built, respectively)

Exactly how many of these conformed to the 1917 design is a matter of speculation (I have already excluded some cars built for UTLX to their X-3 design).  I am tempted to say "all" of the 1918-1919 orders, and some subset of the 1920 orders.  My only clue for 1920 is a lot of 240 8000-gal cars ordered by Sinclair, but never delivered.  I have long assumed this order somehow got canceled due to the changeover to longitudinal courses.  It will prove very difficult to ever pin this down, as these orders are peppered with small lots of 100 cars or less across a great many private companies.

It's also hard to know how many of these cars actually went into the GATX fleet initially.  The 555 cars from 1918 are suggestive, but could also represent a "speculative" build for later sale.  That chunk of 2104 cars without a named buyer in 1920 is also curious/intriguing.

The ORERs and tariffs may shed a little light.  The October, 1919, ORER lists 4540 cars under various GATC reporting marks, all but ~350 as GATX.  The 1919 (August) tariff seems to agree.  My next ORER is from May, 1925, and shows 11,000 cars, suggesting the addition of ~6500 cars.  I would guess most of these were new cars when added to the GATX roster, as the gobbling up of failing leasing companies seems to date to the 1930s. The December, 1930, register gives 12,123 GATX cars.  I am inclined to believe that much of the ~7600-car increase from 1919 to 1930 reflects the longitudinal-course GA cars from the 1920s, but that's just a guess. A 1921 count for GATX could be helpful.

I have absolutely no handle on how many GA 1930 design cars were built, or who bought them.  The GATX fleet did double from 1930 to 1935, but this was a time when lots of used tank cars could be had on the cheap.

I also want to mention  a couple of things about the 1919 Railway Age data.  This was strange year (perhaps due to the war and USRA control) in that about 2/3 of the 29,893 cars ordered for US companies were tanks cars (as per Railway Age; I have not counted them all).  In that particular year, GA got a very small slice of the pie; AC&F and Penn Tank Car received orders for 3686 and 2418 cars, respectively.  This reminds me of two other gaps in our modeling options for "classic" tank cars:  nothing for Penn Tank, and nothing easy for a transitional design of the ACF -- Type 11 frames, but fitted with Class III tanks. 

Last, I'm not sure I agree with Bruce about these 1917 design cars disappearing in large numbers by the war.  These were Class III cars, no different from the UTLX X-3 cars except for the use of radial courses.  They were fully compliant with all needed safety standards (as were a great many Class II cars).   It's hard to quantify, but a significant number of X-3s survived into the 1950s (as per the Hile book), and I'm not sure there is any a priori reason to think the GA cars were different.  From 1935 to 1945, the GATC fleet seems to have grown by about 14,000 cars.  Maybe they were concurrently scrapping cars, but my (very) limited understanding of the war years is that tank cars were in high demand.  It seems likely that a lot of the retirements of these cars occurred post-1950, but I am not sure how one would get a numerical handle on that given available resources.

Hope this helps.
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Dave Parker
Swall Meadows, CA