I’m planning on modeling a small propane company that would provide fuel for local forklifts. Locally (in the real world) there is such a place under construction and they’re planning on using rail to deliver propane. But that part isnt so important, other than I know these companies exist. So the thing I’m wondering is what sort of car is being used to deliver this propane, in the late 90s to right now time frame. Does anyone make the right kind of tank car in HO? And very important for the trackplanning, how long are these things (both in real feet and the model’s lenght in real inches)?
Tank car, or a tank in a cube support structure, on a flat car or container car
Walthers and Atlas both make 33,000 gallon LPG tankcars. The real cars range in length from 63’ to 71’. The models are about 9" long.
They look a little like this:
Atlas and Walthers both make/made them in HO.
Rotor
The Atlas design is different. Also, the photograph illustrates a point. Be careful not to buy a car marked for anhydrous ammonia, unless you want to repaint part of it and add a decal for the LPG stencil. Also, to be accurate, you will need to buy a set of haz-mat placard decals and add a 1075 placard to each placard holder.
Here’s Atlas’ offering.
Eric…was the Walthers car in the first pic an ammonia car? It was advertised as a propane car. [%-)]
Rotor
The replies you guys gave me pretty much confirmed what I thought. Although I suspected they were much longer cars than they turned out to be.
Yes, it is. Depending on your eyesight, you may be able to read the stencil on the far end of the car. When Walthers came out with these as kits in the early 1990s, they had them seperated into LPG and AA catagories. Unfortunately, they did not do that with the RTR cars. It seems like most of the cars painted white are ammonia cars.
Here is a car they list as an LPG car, but the anhydrous ammonia stencil can be clearly seen on it.
http://www.walthers.com/exec/productinfo/932-27309
Nope, I couldn’t see it!
I’m trying to figure out how to put my big magnifying glass on my monitor! (Or maybe I need to make a trip to Dollar General for a new set of glasses!)
Thanks for bringing that to my attention!
edit: I can see it in the pic you posted!
Rotor
Propane, or LPG, is shipped in pressurized tankcars. Walthers modelled the UTC version with the full-length walkway, however production of these kits stopped a few years back, and so they can be a bit scarce. If you can find them, though, they are usually fairly inexpensive, and are a nice kit to put together (if you can’t get the RTR version). The Atlas version (an ACF car) is a dual-diameter car, which would be prototypical from the mid-1960’s up until the early 2000’s. The last DD tanks were built in 1968, so very few are still existant (due to the 40 years of service rule). As a rule of thumb, the simpler the paint scheme, the more modern the car is. In the 60’s shippers wanted big colourful paint jobs, but they eventually realized that more paint colours = more money per car. Also, cars with an orange band around the tank are being phased out (repainted), and so there are few of those cars left. Propane (or AA for that matter) can be modelled with single-car shipments, especially if you model a rural setting or branch line (farms, for example, use both LPG and AA).
I used to work at a Sony plant a couple years ago and on one side of the building was a spur for the tank cars to deliver propane for the forklifts and other chemicals used in production. The LPG tank cars were those 65’ foot long 33,000 gallon LPG tankers. I think ATLAS and Walthers both have models of them and they’re about 9 inches long I think.