Jim,

Broadly speaking, it is possible. Two situations resulted in lease fleets owning a competitor’s designed car. First, mergers. Cars from absorbed fleets often came from a wide variety of builders and so UTLX for example, could end up rostering an AC&F or GATC built car. Alternatively there was some cross-building by the competing companies, where one company would have cars built by another.

As for the accuracy of these cars? They are not up to my standards. YMMV.

Regards,

Bruce Smith

Auburn, AL

Looking at the ad, there is a GATX-marked car, and a UTLX-marked car.  Would both companies have had cars of the same design.

And is this model an accurate representation of a three-compartment car?

Jim van Gaasbeek

Irvine, CA

Here is the original E-Mail notification:

You have to have a login and password to get to their online shop.  But the E-Mail provides enough info, I believe.

Jim van Gaasbeek

Irvine, CA

Alex,

I don’t see the photo you mentioned… can you provide a link? 

The NYCHS basically decided to become a competitor of other on-line hobby shops. Accuracy has never been a big issue with them and I see that they are offering UTLX, GATX, Culf and Sonoco cars. The cars themselves are crudely detailed, and appear to be GATC built cars. It appears that they were built as 3 compartment cars, as opposed to being converted to such, due to the equal sized domes. As such, they are a pretty rare car when compared to the rest of the fleet.

As we discussed in another tank car thread, the type of train these cars would be seen in would depend on where in their transit they were. They could be seen in solid trains of tank cars that were either being delivered to, or picked up from, a refinery. From there, they would be split up and since these were often to deliver multiple refined products to either one or a few customers, yes, they would be mixed in with other types of freight cars.

During WWII, their primary use would have been hauling crude, as part of complete trains of tank cars.

As I note above, their typical (non-WWII) use would have been deliveries of LCL amounts of refined product to a dealer or multiple dealers. The PRR had several 3 compartment tanks in company service, hauling used crankcase oil to a reclamation plant, and reclaimed oil back to engine houses. In that case,  the compartments were used to segregate clean and dirty oil so that the car did not have to be cleaned between trips. As such, it only ever ran about ½ full.

Regards,

Bruce Smith

Auburn, AL

The NYCSHS Company Store is advertising Walthers triple dome tank cars, with a photo of a solid NYC freight train of tank cars, probably wartime. The cars in the photo are single dome.

Looking at the ad, there is a GATX-marked car, and a UTLX-marked car.  Would both companies have had cars of the same design.

And is this model an accurate representation of a three-compartment car?

Jim van Gaasbeek

Irvine, CA