I’ve seen a pic of a Class 1 (UP I think) loco being fuelled direct from a road tanker.
Is this a common practice?
Do industrials and Short lines fuel this way instaed of or as well as having a small fuelling rack of their own?
it is a common to see a locomotive fueled by a tanker truck depending on which yard it’s at…most of the big yards have a stationary fueling, lube, and sanding tower station, but there are some yards that don’t…I drive by two yards, the UP Coady yard in Baytown and the Strang yard in La Porte every day on my way home from work. I’ve seen the locomotives fuel at the stationary fueling station at the Strang yard but i’ve also seen tanker trucks fuel the locomotives on a siding at the Coady yard which does not have a stationary fueling station…chuck
Yes to both questions.
Dave H.
If you think about it this a great thing for a us modelers. I’m doing a shortline so for a deisel refueling stand all I need is a truck and a place for it to park and you got all you need. I have two yards around me that do the same thing.
andrew
There may be a fuel rack at a major service facility. But many shortlines and industrial roads, used mobile trucks to fuel, sand, and lube locomotives.
Nick
Certainly not unusual:
David,
I like the idea of and probably would have gone the tanker truck route but I couldn’t find one that would fit my era - i.e. early 40’s. I opted for the Walthers Fueling facility.
It’s pretty nice. I ended up kitbashing it slightly. (The original kit had 2 bays. I cut it long ways to narrow it to one.) I still need to finish it and weather it with oil stains and all that.
Tom
I have a couple of videos of short line railroads such as the now-defunct Amador Central, that show them being fueled from a diesel pump like the ones at a gas station that sits beside the track in their yard, and of an Amtrak passenger train being refueled from a tanker truck in Flagstaff, Arizona during its station stop.
Not just for freight, Amtrak gets fuel out of road trucks in a number of locations.
I was on an Amtrak train from Kansas City to Chicago. During its stop in St. Louis, a tank truck was waiting at the end of the station platform to pump fuel into the locomotive.
The following picture was in Green Bay, WI during the C&NW Historical Society annual meet in May 2003.
Great stuff! Thanks! 
Any more examples?
Are refuels always done in yards or are they sometimes done at grade crossings … like some crew changes?
Refueling is normally done in yards, as not to tie up the mains or grade crossings. But really, loco’s can be refuelled anywhere the fuel truck can get to.
My employer has three industrial locomotives,for two of them we get fuel from a two axle truck from a local supplier.The third gets fuel out of a 200 gallon tank.If you model newer fuel tanks put a containment wall around them.
Tell us more about the locos PLEASE! Pics? Do you get to play with them? (Are they DCC compatible??? 
)
Where I’m working at presented EVERYTHING liquid is “bunded” (inside containment walls)… even the empty drum storage. Only trouble is… no-one’s told the rain it isn’t supposed to fall in the bunds… so it has to be pumped out to a holding tank, tested for acidity…
Still… that’s better than dead lakes.
Just a further thought… Why don’t they refuel from rail tank cars? Or do they?
Here in La Crosse the BNSF fuels all the yard switchers with the truck tankers.
What about placing 2 sidings next to eachother and placing 1-2 tankcars on one and the engines have access to the other? No need to have the yardmaster or anyone else call a fuel supplier to come out and fill your engines up. These sidings could be build near a crew building so as to thwart off vandals, etc.
JP
Reason for fuel trucks instead of tank cars is that fuel trucks have their own transfer pumps mounted on the truck so they can be used anywhere you can drive them. A truck already has a propulsion motor so power for the pump is not a problem. Tank cars are used at specific facilities that have their own transfer pumps, so tank cars are not so equipped. Since tank cars have no power source, equipping them with pumps is not so simple.
Fuel trucks are a much simpler solution than building refueling infrastructure (especially environmentally sound infrastructure) provided quantities are less than a truckload twice a week. More than that, economics begin to favor tanks and transfer pumps. Even larger scale operations usually use pipelines instead of trucks to feed the facility, which is why tank cars seldom carry fuel to end users any more.
Fred Wright
one time operator of fuel farm at an airport
Fred -
Thanks for the insight. Now I know why trucks vice tank cars.
JP