I asked the LHS owner if he knew whether gas and oil were transported in these vehicles and he confessed that he didn’t know for sure.
I know that Pure sold gas. Does anyone know if they also sold and transported heating oil and diesel fuel in these types of trucks, as well? The Esso tank truck is specified for heating oil. The Phillips tank truck has no specification.
Also, in the early 40s - where would tank trucks have deposited their gas loads? Was it like gas stations today where there is a designated area away from the service island? Or, would the fuel intake lid be closer to or next to the gas pump?
Tom, I remember that design of truck delivering gasoline (ethyl) to gas stations, heating fuel (actually #2 diesel) and even bulk lubricants. I rather suspect that any given truck was only used for one product, to prevent cross-contamination.
Gas deliveries would have been made to wherever that gas station received gasoline. Some rural stations still had the horizontal tanks with the hand-pumped glass cylinder pumps mounted on one end - capacity circa 100 gallons. Some stations had open-air tanks, either skinny horizontal cylinders (think de-trucked tank car) or low, wide vertical cylinders. By the 1940s, most gasoline storage had been driven underground by local codes.
I actually need a couple of those small horizontal tanks with integral pumps. That’s how the Kiso Forest Railway fueled their `critters,’ even in the 1960s. You should have seen the car that delivered fuel to the ones in the woods!
Note that there is 5 rooftop hatches on the truck. There may be 5 separate tanks in the body. I remember as a kid seeing the local dealer pump gasoline to our farm tractor fuel tank, and home heating oil for the furnace. Usually we would not get dual loads though. The 260 gallon home heating oil tank had to be refilled about every 3 weeks in winter. The raised 260 gallon tractor fuel tank was refilled when there was a ‘gas war’((under 20 cents/gallon!). Arneson Heating had a spur with tank car unloading for the home heating oil, and semi tanker trucks from the local refinery unloaded gasoline via ground level hatches like one sees today.
Don’t know if this helps. During WWII, remember Gulf gas station near our house, which had all fill covers in ground, far away from gas pumps/ main building. Vent piping for all ground tanks was next to restrooms along main building exterior side wall and extended several feet above roofline. TTFN. …papasmurf in NH
Home heating oil is still delivered in trucks like these. But that’s all they carry due to their routes/customers. I believe that to have been the case back in the 40s due to the requirement for a certified meter/register for custody transfer, tax collection. These were not electronic, but mechanical registers.
Although I worked for a relatively modern company, we hauled diesel fuel, gasoline, aviation gas and lube oils in the same truck at different times. Most of these trucks have multiple tanks and can be filled with different products at the same time. On the other hand the tanks can be emptied and use all diesel ior all gas in the tanks.
Mistakes can happen, one of our drivers accidently put gas into the already partially filled diesel tank. We ended up emptying the tank with the combined diesel and gas into one of the giant tanks in the tank farm where the gasoline would mix with the thousands of gallons of diesel and not be a detriment to the diesel user.
Since 1994 the drivers also had to add dye to the diesel if was to be used in a non tax situration like construction or railroad use. While regular diesel was not dyed.
The truck looks like a five compartment tank truck. The driver would open the tank that is required to fill with the product that is called for. What remains in the hose would be pumped into the last product tank selected. Let us not forget that home heating oil and fuel products are just a small portion of petroleum products used at any time. A truck like the one pictured could be used to fill bulk tanks at a service station, loco roundhouse, auto and truck dealers too. In the day that truck would be used it could deliver straight weight motor oil (30wt and 40wt), 50wt transmission oils, 90wt gear oils, semi viscous grease, hydrolic oils, Glycol antifreeze, window washer solvents, The list is endless.
Fuel(gas and diesel) would be delivered by a single or double product tank. The truck pictured would not have enough in one compartment to service a station. Except for the war restrictions stations pumped hundreds of gallons a day of leaded gasoline. The booming after war years saw great increases in gas consumption in the states. Some stations were dispensing thousands of gallons a day by 1947. The truck pictured would have around a 25 hundred gallon tank if not smaller. Anything larger would require a third axle to make it over the light bridges of the day.
Service station under ground tank placement would be dictated by the local govt, and or fire dept. Always as far away from underground utilities as possible. Some stations have above ground tanks today.
I’m having to reach way back in my memory (dad owned a Gulf station for a while) the truck could deliver multiple products from multiple tanks. If I recall right, the tank fillers were in the ground relatively close to the pumps, but this was probably more due to the small size of the station than anything else.
Up through the 60s most of the small towns where I grew up had multiple rail served gas and oil dealerships where they supplied both the local gas stations for that brand and home heating oil. By the 70s it seems both the gas stations and heating oil dealers were starting to be supplied by 18 wheel tankers coming from the tank farms at the pipe terminal.
A pipeline terminal would be an instance where it’s conceivable to have both shipper and receiver within a few miles of each other on rail. Camp Croft in SC became a very large terminal for several of the major oil companies, as well as several chemical plants. During the 60s there were tank cars all over the place collecting gas and oil at the terminal and delivering it to local dealers all throughout the region. .
There is a difference in the product being delivered to the gas station and home heating oil from a legal perspective. Home heating oil requires a specific metering device to be used for gather information on taxes, custody transfer etc. So, these vehicles are specially equipped. Since this equipment is normally at the rear in enclosed areas(although not always enclosed) it is hard to tell from this pic. Multiple hatches are likely for separate tanks(but could be there for cleaning). Keep in mind that when trucks carry liquid a big problem is the liquid sloshing around when partially full. So for transport safety the tanks are kept as full as possible to avoid dangerous driving conditions resulting from large load shifts(sloshing). With a truck like this you could unload a certain amount from a tank portion and then go to the next best to have load balance.
Delivery to gas stations(I used to work at one back in the 70s) was done by the stick method. We would gage the tank with a long measuring stick, have the driver fill it, then the owner would know how much he got and could pay accordingly. These large trucks carried multiple fuels in separate compartments.
That type of fuel truck could be used to refuel a short line locomotive or a locomotive assigned to a branch line that way the railroads wouldn’t have to maintain a engine service area.Sand in both cases would be manually resupplied by using bags of sand…
