tank cars & safety placards

Model Railroader Prototype information for the modeler
1

Tank cars have nowadays safety placards. Those are very remarkable.

I wonder when were the first safety placards in use with tank cars. I think they have changed over the time.

Wolfgang

2

The first placards were probably issued by the AAR Bureau of Explosives and had endorsements of things like “Dangerous”, Flammable", Combustible", etc. in the early 1900’s. They have definitely changed over the last 30 years as Federal regulations on hazmat changed. About 25 years ago the placards with the UN numbers started to become popular, then about 15 years ago they came out with the inhalation hazards with the placard on a square white background.

3

Thank you for the information.

I’m just finishing my Precision Scale Hon3 tank car. Therefore my question.

Wolfgang

4

I haven’t been able to find a picture of the placard but it would probably be a diamond shape, white with a big red “Dangerous”, “Flammable” or “Combustible” on it with smaller lettering in black

Here is a bad B&W image on Shorpy:

http://www.shorpy.com/images/photos/danger.jpg