BLI announced these cars about a year ago. My pair arrived yesterday and I thought I’d post a few photos for anyone interested. Overall, they are very nicely done with loads of added details. There is a slightly exaggerated mold parting line across the horizontal center of the tank which shows up more predominately on the white car. Both cars are stenciled “Roller Bearing Trucks” when clearly they are solid bearing. Otherwise, I’m quite pleased with them, especially at this price level (Mine were $33. ea.) Previously, only available in brass at about ten times that price.
I like to have interesting rolling stock and these tank cars fit the bill. Steel mills were huge users of oxygen and nitrogen. Often a liquid air column was built nearby. The surplus gas could be liquefied and sold off or in cases when the plant was down, liquefied gas could be brought in to keep steel production going.
Those are impressive looking models. Every Cryo car I have seen photos of had roller bearing trucks. Did these prototypes really have solid bearing (so called friction bearing) trucks? I suspect the lettering is correct and the trucks are wrong, unless these are modeling rebuilt trucks that retain the journal covers but actually are roller bearing.
I was wondering about that too, but with original build dates starting in 1960, they might well have been built with solid bearings, then upgraded later?
Sheldon
Update, a review of the pictures on the BLI website shows some owner names with rollerbearing trucks, and some with solid bearing trucks, so possibly they had access to builders photos or data that shows some were built with solid bearing trucks.
Those do indeed look like solid bearing trucks although again, such trucks could be and were rebuilt into roller bearing trucks while sometimes but not always retaining the journal box covers. But yes from a modeling perspective you would use the solid bearing truck model in that circumstance. interesting. Thanks for doing the leg work on that.
They look very nice. These BLI cryo tank cars weren’t on my radar and I didn’t get any while they were widely available; they seem to be already getting hard to find - hopefully BLI will re-run them otherwise they are already getting into “treasure hunt” status.
For what it is worth, the Basic Oxygen plant I worked at used 30,000 cubic feet of oxygen at 220 Psi per minute of operation. Most blows were in the 18’ to 22’ range. There is no way enough oxygen could be generated from cryogenic cars. Maybe transport of some of the smaller fractions like helium or argon as examples. Nitrogen was pretty much a waste gas since it is 78% of air. Some was used in the anneal deprtments as a protective gas around the steel while being heated to prebent oxidation but a lot was just released back into the air.
Oxygen is injected at high rates and pressures to refine and decarburize hot metal. Oxygen can be supplied from a dedicated plant located at or near your facility. Or, we can supplement your existing supply with a bulk supply of liquid oxygen delivered by truck.
(my underscore)
The refractory metals plant I worked in generated a million cubic feet of hydrogen a day but we still had a liquid hydrogen backup storage tank that would be used when the main generation plant was down. Three trucks of liquid a day were needed for operation.
If I had the room on my layout I would like to feature more of the gas plant but as it is I have to assume it is pumped in from an off-site plant.
Broadway’s cars show a 15,000 gallon capacity. This would translate to about 1.725 million FT3 of gas after it was vaporized.
Just happen to run across this discussion today as I searched for an image of a plant that might product some of these cryogenic gases. I happen to have 7-9 of the Broadway versions.
I’ve been a long time fan of these cars ever since I re-entered the train hobby about 12-15 years ago. I had been going thru old issues of MR & MRC picking out things I liked and cutting out those pages to be filed away. This particular ad for the Overland brass models caught my attention.
But the brass models were just beyoud my price tag. Then I ran across an article about building such a car from scratch. I still have that article somewhere in my files.
PHOTO
PHOTO
I subsequently discovered that the 62’ Athearn tank car almost exactly matched the dimensions for a kitbash job. I got 2 such cars and started on such a project. But wrapping styrene shapes around the car to create those ribs became a very time consuming job. Somewhere I still have those two cars I began with.
At the time Lifelike had morphed into Proto 2000, and they were right there in Balt, near me in DC. They were really going the detail route and LOTS of new product. I approached them about creating these cyro cars. They were too busy with other projects.
I believe it was about this time that I discivered the marvelous job being done by Bobby Pitts. He gave me details on his sources for railings, grates etc, etc. I just needed to figure out how to get someone to laser cut those reinforcement rigs.
Bobby’s work
I think it was about that time that Atlas came out with their 33,000 gal propane cars. I approached them about making a run of cyro cars. &nbs
When I first returned to this hobby, I visited a number of modular railroad displays.
As I began to formulate some ideas that I did not see on many, or any occasions, two came to mind…as a diorama or modular section. I also thought these might be ‘educational’ to both kids and some adults. (There are a lot of folks that have no idea of where our electrical power comes from)
Saturn V Launch Scene
I don’t ever recall seeing such a scene. My interest grew from both growing up in that era and the lack of kids knowledge about it , (and some pics of liquid oxygen cars I’d seen). So I asked myself , “how did they get the liquid oxygen fuel into the Kennedy Center for the Saturn V moon rocket?”. Turns out Florida East Coast RR was on some sort of managed strike at the time, so most of the fuel arrived by truck to be stored in big tanks under ground.
WELL, how about if we play with that history a bit and have fuel arrive by rail! …the new transport age being assisted by the old transport age of railroad. Liquid oxygen cars bringing in the fuel for the Saturn rocket. And in a newer vein the solid rocket boosters being brought in for the Space Shuttle Rocket. Lots of switcher action with special NASA switchers, BIG models, etc.
Can you imagine the look in kids eyes when they saw a 5.5 foot high rocket (Saturn V in HO scale) on a diorama/module. Might make them want to learn more about this great accomplishment in our history, and consider science futures.
…forum discussion about contacting possible manufactures,…and details about Bobby’s suggestions for lit bashing cryogenic cars
[Link removed by moderator.]
Brian,
Please STOP posting links to other forums. This violates our MR forum policy. You’ve been warned several times about this. Please discontinue this practice, or face being placed on moderation. Thank you for your understanding.
Hey Bobby, I so much liked this tank car model that I have on at least two occasions tried to get the ‘major players’ to consider building an HO model of this Liquid Oxygen, Liquid Air tank car. Here is one letter I sent out about 3 years ago:
_____________________________________ TO: Athearn Model RR Atlas Model RR Walthers Model RR
Subject: New Product Suggestion….new Tank Car model
I’m sure you likely get a number of various such suggestions all the time, so pardon me for making another. (I’ve actually been quite good at picking successful items to market in my past…
Okay, right up front I confess to having a particular fascination with ‘tank cars’ in the model railroad hobby. Both of your companies have produced some very nice ones over the recent years. I must own at least 20 examples of the 33,000 gal propane cars from Atlas. And I’m extremely pleased with the new 13.500 gal acid cars from Athearn…I’ll be collecting a number of those. In particular I recently acquired a “Pemco” model by Athearn…the graphics and details on this car are GREAT. I ordered two of them, but was only able to get 1. Seems they sold out the first run, and now may not have enough in the second run?? I would love to have a few more.
There is another tank car model that I that has too long been neglected, and I think it could sell in fairly large numbers…. LIQUID AIR cars….externally ribbed cryogenic cars. Most specifically I’m referring to the 65-foot liquid air cars built by Union Tank Car as addressed in this attached article from Model Railroder, and these photos from Overland Models.
To my knowledge only Overland Models has ever built models of these cars,…in brass, …and they current bring about $300 to $350 each in the market (
