Wednesday Wanderings - Tank Car Edition

 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.

Field Research - PC 9041 GS Gondola

 There is an outstanding railroad museum in Snoqualmie, Washington, just East of Seattle toward Snoqualmie Pass off of Interstate 90.  In addition to a historic depot downtown and scenic weekend train rides, the museum has both indoor and outdoor exhibits, including a collection of locomotives and rolling stock.

Of great interest to me is a gondola in their collection, one of the only remaining pieces of Pacific Coast Railroad rolling stock.  On a visit to the museum, I took a number of photographs of the car to capture the details.  Although it sits inside of a fenced siding, I was able to view most of the car from different angles.

PC-9041 GS Drop Bottom Gondola

According to Great Northern Railroad Historical Society (GNRHS) Reference Sheet #364, the Great Northern transferred a number of older GS gondolas from GN series 76000-76249 to the PCRR around 1956 to replace worn out cars for hauling coal.  This drop bottom gondola was originally built for the Great Northern in 1918 by Western Steel Car and Foundry in Illinois, as part of the GN's first purchase of General Service (GS) gondolas.  After its use by the PCRR, this one went on to serve Rayonier on their logging railroad on the Olympic Peninsula, hauling gravel, and then was donated to the museum in 1986, after 68 years of use, as described on this sign next to the car.

(click to enlarge)

As you can see, the car sits outside and shows the effects of it's long years of service, but amazingly, one can still make out ghostly remnants of the large "PACIFIC COAST" billboard type lettering that the PCRR used on their gondolas.

Faint Lettering on Car Side

Lettering Diagram from Champ Decal Set HG-126

The gondola sits on trucks that have "NP" and "NORPACRY" cast on them, so at some point the original trucks apparently were changed out for these Northern Pacific solid bearing trucks, whether by one of the railroads or the museum, I am not sure. These trucks are similar to the original Bettendorf trucks that were supplied on these gondolas, based on equipment diagrams and photos in the reference sheet.

On the "B" end, it has an Ajax handbrake and you can also see the air retainer valve and the bottom dump door release mechanism.  The power handbrakes were added during rebuilding in 1939, when the sides and ends were also replaced.

Brake or "B" End of PC 9041

There is no commercially available model that matches this car, one would need to accept some compromises unless you wanted to completely scratch build it.  I plan to kitbash a car or two to represent these signature PCRR gondolas so being able to photograph the car and supplement my other research materials was very welcome.