Travel, whether for work or pleasure, can sometimes provide an opportunity to find and photograph interesting railroad subjects. In this Wandering, I share a few tank cars that could have been in use during the period that I model, and which offer interesting details for reference in modeling.
This first tank car was located at the Marias Museum of History & Art in Shelby, MT. My wife and I were attending the Great Northern Railroad Historical Society (GNRHS) convention held at Glacier National Park in 2010. One of the activities offered was an all day bus tour to several locations along the BNSF (former GN) line, including a stop at this eclectic museum, which had a caboose and tank car alongside a collection of antique farming equipment.
I have not been able to determine the origin of this car, which has reporting marks USA 19049. The other lettering was too faded to read, so I do not have many details. The car is sitting on a very nice set of Andrews trucks and easily accessible on all sides for photos. I won't overwhelm you with all of them, but this next photo shows an interesting lever hand brake and some of the rivet detail clearly.
Further back, my work regularly called for driving trips to Eastern Washington, including the Richland - Pasco - Kennewick Tri-Cities area, which is the location of the Department of Energy's Hanford Site, which was the Manhattan Project site that produced the majority of the plutonium used for nuclear weapons beginning in WWII and ending in 1987. Pasco is also the location of a major rail yard that was once owned by the SP&S Railroad and which still serves the BNSF today.
Behind some warehouses that date back to the WWII era and are now an industrial park, there is a collection of vintage railroad equipment, both freight and passenger, that is openly accessed.
This welded ICC 103-W tank car built by GATC in August 1949 is one of the pieces of rolling stock there. The stenciling notes that the tank is Saran lined, likely for corrosive chemical service of some kind. Original reporting marks were painted over, and the number HO-10H-3686 is not one I have identified.
This photo is a close up view of the double shelf coupler on the brake end of the car. This type of coupler is relatively newer than the car, and is designed to prevent another car's coupling "riding" up or under the tank car coupling and possibly puncturing the tank in a derailment. From other stenciling on this car, it appears that it may have been in use until the mid 1990's, which could explain why this coupling was retrofitted. Note the air brake hose detail also.
Here's one last tank car view to finish off our Wandering this week, this one also taken in Pasco on the same trip in 2005. This is a riveted car, built by AC&F in January 1941. Unfortunately I did not get a clear picture showing the type of the car, but it has an unusual large platform around the dome. My guess is this was added some time after the car was built, as it still has a small side platform below the dome on this side that appears to be original. Again, it seems this car was in use into the 1990s.
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