My buddy got a shot of this 6 axle tank car when railfanning at Curtis Hill on the BNSF transcon in Oklahoma:
Photo from: Rick Inserlman
What’s the story with these cars? What commodity do they carry? How many are there?
Did he happen to see what the placard was? Reporting marks? Anything?
Pretty sure there was a discussion on these cars a few weeks ago. Look back through the posts to find it.
Let’s analyze this one for a moment…
Tank car = liquid commodity, c-trucks = heavy. Based on that alone, my hypothesis would be marine grade lead paint, the likes of which is used on the hulls of large sea-going vessels. I’ve had the priveledge of handling 55-gal drums of this stuff when I worked in freight; it took two of our strongest guys, struggling, to tip them far enough to get the blade of a heavy-duty hand truck under them and then back on its wheels to move them around on the dock or to load them on our trucks. IIRC, a 55-gal drum weighs about 1,200 lbs. You do the math.
Anything from chlorine to LPG…although this one is hauling something that is a poison/inhalation danger hazmat according to the placard color.
The idea behind the car was that, due to its size, one of these could replace two “normal” sized tank cars, thus saving on fleet and hire cost.
The trucks are semi articulated and their trade name is Buckeye trucks…six axels are used because of the length of the car and the weight when fully loaded.
They are slowly leaving interchange service, as each one reaches the end of its service life, they are being scrapped, but there are still a considerable number of them out there, we get two or three a week into the Port of Houston.
I can’t remember whose cars had the blue reporting marks on a gray carbody–there just aren’t too many of these things left–as Ed says, they’re nearing the end of their service life.
The previous thread concerning some of these mosters had to do with DUPX tank cars–a search for DUPX in this Forum ought to bring it up.
Not sure I’ve ever seen chlorine hauled in cars this big.
One commodity that gets hauled in large tank cars is ethylene glycol (basically anti-freeze), but I haven’t seen that in a while, and am not sure it’s an inhalation hazard.
I think you might be right, Carl…I can’t enlarge the photo anymore than it is, and my eyesight aint what it used to be, but that might be an acid placard, or a marine pollutant placard, if it is, then anti freeze would be the haul.
It looks like it is a general service tankcar. If so, it could not be a TIH.
I think it is a CELX car.
It looks like a CELX tankcar hauling acetic anhydride.
http://RailcarPhotos.com/Search.php?SearchReportingMark=CELX&Search=Search
these cars when we get them are always 200 tons and placarded as corrosives we get 5-8 at a time. celx 6 axels tanks cars.
I count 12 axles.
go ahead show us how you counted 12 axles. not 12 wheels 12 axles
Correctomundo !!! I went and counted the wheels (12) and axles (6) So that’s 2 wheels,1 axle----- that makes 6 axels.
I count 12 axles in that there is a second 6 axle in the shot.
There are eleven axles in the shot–1 1/2 six-axle cars and 1/2 4 axle car.
Acetic anhydride is NOT an inhailant hazardous material. According to the Federal hazardous materials table it is UN1715 and has a placard of 8 designating it as a corrosive material.
Ira