Hey Everyone
Im looking at getting a few carbon cars, I see them go through the CN mainlines in ontario.
This the company I have sourced. Any thoughts, and if anyone knows much about carbon cars, I would like to hear them.
http://www.railshop.net/index.php?cPath=22&osCsid=27a17d2896b8b77913c60519c3941ba1
CASO
Carbon cars have traditionally been black to hide the effects of carrying the product. Primarily used as a colorant the big user is the tire industry to make tires as black as possible. I suspect a little goes a long way as I have never seen one in person on any train and the cars are pretty rare. I wouldn’t buy a fleet of them.
I have one of the kits and its really cool looking, but still have to put it together. Had to have one of these cars for my SP trains because they loaded carbon blacks at a plant in Mojave, CA.
ok which of those cars is for which era’s??
Carbon Black plants are located in North America:
Sid Richardson Co., Big Spring and Borger, Texas
Cabot Corp., Alpharetta, Ga., Centerville and Ville Platte, La., Billerica and Haverhill, Ma., Albuquerque, N.M., Pampa, Tex., Waverly, W.Va., and Sarnia, Ontario.
Columbian Chemicals Co., Ulysses, Kan., Proctor, W.Va., Franklin, La., and Hamilton, Ont.
Continental Carbon, Phenix City, Ala., Ponca City, Okla., and Sunray, Texas.
Degussa AG, Aransas Pass, Borger, Baytown, and Orange, Texas, Ivanhoe, La., and Belpre, Ohio.
Carbon black is also widely manufactured elsewhere in the world, particularly in Europe, Japan, India, Indonesia, and China. The basic raw material is residual heavy oil from petroleum refining. Most of the Canadian production is exported to the U.S.
70% of carbon black is used in synthetic rubber including tires, to color, improve wear, heat transfer, strength, and resistance to cutting. The other 30% is used for ink, printer toner, UV and temperature stabilization for plastics, and coatings.
Carbon black cars are most commonly seen moving between sources and tire plants. I see them very frequently in West Texas but not very often most other places my job takes me.
RWM
The RailGoat has a good site on Carbon Black Cars if you are interested in some prototype research information. The site is slow to load initially, but once you get there, Lee Gautreaux has a whole page devoted to Carbon Black Cars, in particular they are quite common around the South Louisiana area which also has several plants in the area.
Here are the links that Lee provides for Carbon Black Cars found in Louisiana:
ACFX - AC&F Industries (car leasing)
ECQX - Engineered Carbons, Inc.
JMHX - J. M. Huber, Corp.
NAHX - General Electric Railcar Services Corp.
SRCX - Sid Richardson Carbon and Energy Co.
TCMX - CIT Group/Capitol Finance Inc.
THRX - Transportation Corporation of America
I met Lee several times a few years ago when I was doing some contractor work with Bell South in Houma, LA.
Cheers,
Ryan
I have seen too many carbon cars, because there is a tire plant in Prescott, so a lot come through.
Hi keep an eye on ebay. Front range and Mckean models made HO scale three bay acf’s painted for Columbian Chemicals and for Ashland Chemicals. I’ve seen both in real life moving on CN trains through the Niagara peninsula. I’ve got at least one or two of each. The kits aren’t too bad bit under detailed by modern standards but they do go for about half the cost of those kits you found.
Good luck
Rob
The Railshop cars are models of cars that were built at least as far back as 1947. I am sure all of the prototypes are retired by now.
There also used to be one at Rosamond and another west of Bakersfield. All are closed now.
so Railshop cars are too old for now a days?
Also does anyone have pics of the carbon companies plants?
CASO
The websites of the carbon companies have a few photos (I noticed some on the Sid Richardson website yesterday). And, if you use Google Earth or Microsoft Live, you can get a footprint of each plant.
RWM
Caso,
The carbon cars you are looking at are indeed too old for your purposes. As far as density of carbon cars goes, a tire plant will use anywhere from 10 to 50 cars a week depending on it’s size. They also use distinctive DeGussa blue or Pittsburgh grey resin cars with the same door fixtures as the carbon cars. I work at a tire plant and we keep about 50 cars on the premises. A lot of our cars come to the plant on the KCS or the BNSF and are handed off to the UP for delivery to the plant. For the most part the cars travel in two’s or three’s. So unless you have a tire or rubber plant or a carbon plant, you probably wouldn’t want more than a couple of cars. If you have any more questions, drop me a line.
Mikie
Mikie
Who would manufactuere more modern cars then? All I know of is Railshop products. Where is your plant located and where is its supplier located??
CASO
There is a large carbon black plant located in Medicine Hat, Alberta, Canada.
The bodies of some modern carbon black cars I’ve seen near Findley, Ohio look nearly identical to 50-foot airslide cars. Since every time I passed them I was going by on I-75, I haven’t gotten a good look at the outlets.
Until someone comes out with a more modern version, it would be a relatively simple project to kitbash a car, using either a ribbed or center flow body from a grain or plastics hopper of the appropriate size.
The roof and the bottom outlets will have to be made from scratch. There are also sampling ports on the sides of the cars.
John Timm
The old front range kits were in fact the same as their grain cars.I would think that you could adapt the new atlas acf cars with some of the above mentioned outlet changes.
Rob
Im thinking about building an industry out of this concept. Have a carbon plant and a tire plant. Possibly a few other supporting industries. I need some ideas for buildings ie. kitbashing or buying.
It would go nice with my assembly plant for cars and trucks.
Any thoughts?
CASO
Take a peek throught the Walthers Catalogue. If my slowley firing grey matter remembers correctly both a tire plant and a carbon black plant were or are available from them. they were not cheap and they did have rather larger foot prints.The do pop up on ebay as well.
Rob