A few days ago a friend of mine showed me pictures of an N-scale tankcar with the question what brand it was from and espacially what it was used for.
I couldn’t find the answer myself so I hope you can help me, here are some pictures:
Coert Smit
It resembles the Model Power “40’ Chemical tank car” in the 2001 Walthers catalog, although the box is definitely not Model Power. A “SP (silver)” is listed in the catalog. I don’t know who actually makes Model Power brand freight cars.
A car letered for the SP it would be in company not commercial service. I don’t know what it would transport for the railroad. Some railroads have or had tank cars to carry fuel or lube oils to remote places. I know the SP had some old decrepit tank cars used for water or fire retardent chemical cars on “fire trains”.
If your talking about the model…it is made by “High Speed metal works”, and it is from a Readers Digest promo. It includes a SP GP60, gon, tank car, and I think one or two other cars.
Thom
SP#1
The problem with these is that they’re really not for model railroads. They’re decorative items. he trucks don’t work, they’re equipped with bad rapido copies, and the engine is a dummy. I suppose you could change out the trucks to Micro Trains, but you might as well get a M-T or Model Power car at that point.
That’s exactly what he said when he asked the question to me. I think he will be very pleased with the answers given up to now. Thanks for sharing your knowledge with me (and him)
The model maker should be stamped somewhere underneath the tank or the frame of the car. One mark will be for the country of orgin and the manufacturer or importer.
I have seen cheap Lifelike freight cars produced under an Industrial label
& sold cheap at 3.00 per car. The die may be very old but useable for a crude model. Highspeed may simply be a US importer for these models.
The tanker appears to be an old 10,000 gallon model used for company service. It should be labeled if it was used for water, oil, or locomotive fuel. Those liquids don’t mix! Some water could also been carried to desert areas in Calif-Arizona for use by old steam engines. ATSF had the same problem. That’s one reason why they were an early buyer of FT’s.
It is indeed a 10,000 gallon tank car according to the markings on the side. On the bottom of the car are tha Markings ‘Highspeed’ and ‘China’. So I guess the last one means that it’s produced in china while ‘Highspeed’ indicates that it’s produced by a company called Highspeed ???
Does any of you know whether this model has any collectors value, it looks like it is in a pretty good shape, but that doesn’t mean anything if noone wants to buy it.