Athearn has announced to release Single Dome Tank Cars from Santa Fe with an interesting color code using stripes and dome colors to indicate the load.
It is stated in the announcement that these belong to the Era: Mid 1970s - 1990s.
Is this time period/era correct?
I thought that this type of cars was more common to be used during 1940s - 1960s.
Does anyone have some information on this topic especially when this type of car and paint scheme was in use?
Thanks
Peter
Due to the special nature of the loads carried, most tank cars were owned by private firms and leased to customers. The few tank cars owned by the railroads were for company use only. Loads include diesel fuel oil and and diesel lube oil. Large roads had lube oil processing plants and used the oil over and over.
The Athearn cars represent company service cars. The color coding indicated Diesel Fuel, Lube Oil, and a couple other fluid, but I’m sure the exact color coding.
As a note, these are rereleases of MDC/Roundhouse cars.
Nick
Are you sure those are ex-MDC cars? The drawings appear to be of the single dome, tranisition era tankcars that Athearn has made for years. I can only recall MDC making models of older and modern tankcars.
Thanks for the information. If these are the MDC/Roundhouse cars then the time range 1970-1990 is probably more correct than 1940-1960, but then the drawings don´t seem to match in my opinion.
Do you have any information during which time period the prototype used this kind of color coding ?
Peter
I’m pretty sure 1970s to early 80s is a good time frame.
Nick
For the color stripe Santa Fe tanks, 1970 to the late 1980’s should be pretty good. I can’t verify this but I thought I saw cars like this (striped tanks) in Barstow not too long ago. Although this Athearn car looks to be an older model of a tank car. So it’s life would have been limited and likely would have only been in MOW service, or stored on a siding somewhere to hold the commodities for local use.
Not sure if the Santa Fe ever had this particular tank car model (hard to tell from the preproduction images) but the paint is ultra correct. They had more then the 5 stripe colors that will come in the 6 car set.
Here are the Santa Fe stripe color codes I know of (the bold ones are not in the Athearn 6 car set):
Diesel Fuel - Grey
Gasoline - Red
Car Journal Oil - Yellow
Water - Green
Diesel Lube Oil - Yellow and Grey
Reclaimed Lube Oil - Yellow and Green
Solvents - Red and Yellow
I think Microscale makes a decal set as well, but I think it only had a few color bands…not the whole set.
Hope this helps.
According to Santa Fe Painting and Lettering Guide by Richard H. Hendrickson, published by Santa Fe Modelers Association ( www.atsfrr.org )
“In 1942-1949, the domes of Santa Fe tank cars assigned to diesel fuel service were painted yellow-orange. This was changed to light gray domes and tank banks in 1949. Beginning in the 1970s, the Santa Fe classified other company cars as to the products carried therein utilizing a system of colored bands.” …etc.
Microscale makes a decal for the colored bands.
My N scale rendition of a TK-N.
http://www.railimages.com/albums/kennethanthony/aay.jpg