Show Me Your Oil Tankers

Weaver Sinclair Oils custom run tank cars.

Here are a few of mine:

A reworked Lionel

A Bing

An American Flyer

A New Marx Prototype

...and last, but not least, old #1 - a 1952 stocking stuffer from my Grandmother to add to my brand new Lionel Scout Set that Santa left me that year.

Arnold - a search for tank cars would bring up at least two pages.  All of mine are 2-rail, including three genuine Lionel 715 tanks, but if at all interested, here is a link:

https://ogrforum.com/topic/lobaugh

OOH ! Sorry .. you said TANKers !

Ok some from the eclectic "House of FM "

Pionerexpressen ( Denmark 1950's)

Fleischmann Germany (with and without Brakemans cab)

Robilt ( Australia 1950's... very poor condition, but not abnormal , the paint chipped abysmally right outta the factory so its likely 50% of robilt looks this way now lol )

Hornby France

Hornby UK

Hornby Gas wagon on a flatwagon ...

Bing Germany

Kraus Fandor

Sakai Japan

A modern era Lionel die-cast single dome tank car waits in the siding as a hot Southern Pacific intermodal train passes.

Another favorite of mine:

Well tanker fans...I warned Arnold that I was a "tank - a - holic" so I gathered up a display of Marx 6 " tankers for your review. First, two SF "Middle States Oil" 6" 8 wheel cars, one with "one way" automatic coupler, red frame and "bullet" shaped tank ends and the other with tab and slot coupler, flat tank ends,  and black frame.  Both produced about the same time, 1936-37. The 6" 8 wheel cars did not reappear after the war.

3 more "Middle States Oil" cars, which were available both pre and post war. This picture illustrates that these cars came with a black, red/white, and silver frame.   Although the silver frame car and the red frame car was more numerous pre war it is not an absolute dating feature.  The black frame was the most common post war.  All these cars have the flat ends on the tank.

Two of the earliest SF Middle States Oil cars.  The one on the left has the short wheelbase, silver lithographed frame which was the first frame Marx used on his 6" cars.  The short wheel base car dates from about 1934.  The other yellow car has an early frame with rounded ends, but longer wheelbase, dating it from about 1935 -36. Note that like most of the early tankers, these two have "bullet" shaped tank ends.

Next up is the Marx # 19847 SDRX Sinclair tankers.  Except for the lithographed number, these are more or less the same physical car as the 553 tanker illustrated above.  Available in both black and green and here with tab/slot couplers.  They came with plastic knuckle couplers post 1953.  Note the lower domes that are color coded and not polished metal like almost all the other tankers in this line.  These were part of the "new" lithographic designs, carrier out in the 1950's.

Finally, the UTLX, Union Tank Car Co, tanker from about 1953.  This has the plastic knuckle couplers that first appeared in 1953 and lasted until the end of the 6" line (and Marx).  This has the larger diameter (18mm) and flatter dome, flat ends, and square end frame.  This is about the final configuration of the tank car.  All of these 6" cars in various forms were available in Marx sets, electric, wind up, and battery almost to the end of Marx production.  As such they represent an extremely successful and long lasting design despite being a long way from scale.

Well, that's my tanks for tonight.  Have a great week everyone.

Don

British American

Found the boxes of small tank cars, so I figured they needed a little exercise.

@gunrunnerjohn posted:

Found the boxes of small tank cars, so I figured they needed a little exercise.

Love the smoking oil tankers in your very long oil tanker train.

@Don McErlean posted:

Well tanker fans...I warned Arnold that I was a "tank - a - holic" so I gathered up a display of Marx 6 " tankers for your review. First, two SF "Middle States Oil" 6" 8 wheel cars, one with "one way" automatic coupler, red frame and "bullet" shaped tank ends and the other with tab and slot coupler, flat tank ends,  and black frame.  Both produced about the same time, 1936-37. The 6" 8 wheel cars did not reappear after the war.

3 more "Middle States Oil" cars, which were available both pre and post war. This picture illustrates that these cars came with a black, red/white, and silver frame.   Although the silver frame car and the red frame car was more numerous pre war it is not an absolute dating feature.  The black frame was the most common post war.  All these cars have the flat ends on the tank.

Two of the earliest SF Middle States Oil cars.  The one on the left has the short wheelbase, silver lithographed frame which was the first frame Marx used on his 6" cars.  The short wheel base car dates from about 1934.  The other yellow car has an early frame with rounded ends, but longer wheelbase, dating it from about 1935 -36. Note that like most of the early tankers, these two have "bullet" shaped tank ends.

Next up is the Marx # 19847 SDRX Sinclair tankers.  Except for the lithographed number, these are more or less the same physical car as the 553 tanker illustrated above.  Available in both black and green and here with tab/slot couplers.  They came with plastic knuckle couplers post 1953.  Note the lower domes that are color coded and not polished metal like almost all the other tankers in this line.  These were part of the "new" lithographic designs, carrier out in the 1950's.

Finally, the UTLX, Union Tank Car Co, tanker from about 1953.  This has the plastic knuckle couplers that first appeared in 1953 and lasted until the end of the 6" line (and Marx).  This has the larger diameter (18mm) and flatter dome, flat ends, and square end frame.  This is about the final configuration of the tank car.  All of these 6" cars in various forms were available in Marx sets, electric, wind up, and battery almost to the end of Marx production.  As such they represent an extremely successful and long lasting design despite being a long way from scale.

Well, that's my tanks for tonight.  Have a great week everyone.

Don

Don, you have as very nice collection of tinplste oil tankers.

@Arnold D. Cribari posted:

Love the smoking oil tankers in your very long oil tanker train.

I liked those as soon as I saw them, a cool option for a little something different.

.

@jackiejr posted:

.

Love your layout. Seems all trains scale or not look so much better in a realistic landscape.

Pete

Of course my favorites would be from Western Pennsylvania, home of the first producing oil well.

Hello tanker fans.  Rainy day here in Texas so I thought I might round up another group of tankers for you all to see.  These are mostly from European or UK manufacturers and I have picked them up over the last 20 years or so, just for fun.

Here is a very old Fandor 4000 gal tanker, from the early part of the 20th century...1910-20

He

Here is a much later, likely 1930's Fandor  Shell tanker along with a "stake wagon"

From the UK, a Mettoy SHELL tanker from the 1950's

The buff / red lettered Hornby ESSO tanker from 1936

The follow on to the above tanker from post war, much simpler color scheme and lettering the Hornby Esso tanker from 1949-1952

The LEUNA tanker from Karl Bub in 1934-36

Finally another ESSO tanker this one from Konrad Dressler in the 1950's

Well that's all I have for today..."TANK's a lot" for viewing!

Don

Three of my favorites, not petro but oil none the less

By Atlas, I think there are three road numbers.  John

@Randy Harrison posted:

@Pantenary

Your tank fleet is great! Your catenary is intriguing. Did you build it yourself? If so, do you have plans that you would be willing to share?

Thank you.

Hi Randy:

Sorry for the late reply.  The link to the catenary system is here; you've seen it before, as you commented on it way back.  I don't want to hijack this thread, so please reply over there if you have any other comments or questions.

Thanks for the compliment on the tanks.  They are superb models, and darn near impossible to find.  I happened on this set at Nicholas Smith last month, and acquired a couple more from a Euro-minded member on the forum, @Steinzeit.

@Pantenary posted:

Hi Randy:

Sorry for the late reply.  The link to the catenary system is here; you've seen it before, as you commented on it way back.  I don't want to hijack this thread, so please reply over there if you have any other comments or questions.

Thanks for the compliment on the tanks.  They are superb models, and darn near impossible to find.  I happened on this set at Nicholas Smith last month, and acquired a couple more from a Euro-minded member on the forum, @Steinzeit.

@Pantenary

Nate:

Thanks for the link to your plans. Yours is a most impressive post. Your detail and photos are most helpful. The post must have taken you a huge amount of time.

I have several questions for you.

• Are your solder joint done with high temperature silver solder or regular tin/lead soft solder?
• The brass rods from Lowes, are they brazing rods?
• Did you anneal the rods to facilitate the intricate bends required?

Bravo on a great piece of work and thank you for your generosity in sharing your technique in such great and informative detail.

Hi Randy:

I'll respond to your questions on my post, as to not hijack this one.  Thanks.

Here is a Hooker tanker in pre-1950 paint scheme.  There are a lot of Hooker cars out there painted in the later orange with black stripe in the dome area, but only these Atlas cars with the earlier paint scheme were produced.

And here is a fantasy scheme I run with my red-white-blue fleet.

TANK you all for sharing photos of your tank cars !!!

I have a few tank cars for CB&Q, Shell Oil, & Dow Chemical.

I worked at Dow in R&D as a Co-Op student during my college years.

Tanks again !!!

Tankers on a move!

I'll have to break out some tank cars but here's a picture for now.I believe the Champion Oils is a MTH RK and the BNSF is an IDM.

Have to send some tank cars down the east coast!!

My little guy last year wanted to see how many tank cars we could get going. Any more than this and things got squirrely

Some favorites, all MPC-era tankers.

Here are 2 that I custom painted and lettered. The CB&Q tank car is a Red Caboose kit and the Great Northern is from Lionel.

RAY

While not an oil tanker, I had to include this more modern (1957) paint scheme on my newly acquired (well, okay, Christmas present) Atlas tank car from Public Delivery Track.

That Atlas Hooker is a looker! I have that one as well or at least one of the four numbers.

Well guys, in my typical fashion, I am "stretching" the definition of "tank car".  Here is a special car that Lionel (MPC in 1996) made for the Lionel Railroader Club.

"TANKS" to everyone for looking!     Don

Don, that looks like a tank car to me! Four in one as a matter of fact!

Thanks Artie

Don

Dusted off the rest of the small tank cars and made a 54 car train.  This was really useful for working out the kinks in a couple of the Ross switches, the wheels clip the "spikes" and short out, only certain cars.  The consist made about a dozen laps after all the fixes, so I think I may have cleaned everything up.

Did someone say OIL tanks.  Oil and Gas purchased my trains..30 years +.. sometimes 24 hours a day.  Guess which company, and it does not start with a "S" and end in a "L".

You don't shot a hole in the ground and it bubbles up.