Comparing the Bachmann and Micro-Trains single-dome tank cars

[wcfn100]

Umm, Type 27 refers to an American Car & Foundry (AC&F) patented tank car design of 1927, not just the underframe. It includes things like longitudinal courses, riveting patterns, saddle design etc.

Type-XX as designated from AC&F does not include the tank, it's just the under frame. 

edit:

From Edward Kaminski's ACF Tank Car book.

A popular misconception is that AC&F identified the entire tank car by a Type designation...
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...
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When speaking of a particular Type tank car from AC&F, then, it must be kept in mind that this applies to a standardized under frame, not the tank.

I'm not going to argue the point.   I can only go with the resources I have.  I'm open to any new info if you can cite any.

Jason

[Nato]

            The Kaminski book is a great resource, especially for ACF cars. The best tank car model in my book you cannot get any more. It was the old Arnold Rapido car with nice almost scale sized metal hand rails. I obtained a bunch, nice proto paint schemes. A big problem though, very very hard convert to Micro Trains coupler mounted trucks, I never tried body mounting. Out of five cars I only converted two. I did buy a S*** Pot of IM cars when they came out as the were different looking than MT cars and came in multi packs. Nate Goodman (Nato). Salt Lake, Utah.

[peteski]

           The Kaminski book is a great resource, especially for ACF cars. The best tank car model in my book you cannot get any more. It was the old Arnold Rapido car with nice almost scale sized metal hand rails. I obtained a bunch, nice proto paint schemes. A big problem though, very very hard convert to Micro Trains coupler mounted trucks, I never tried body mounting. Out of five cars I only converted two. I did buy a S*** Pot of IM cars when they came out as the were different looking than MT cars and came in multi packs. Nate Goodman (Nato). Salt Lake, Utah.

I have couple of those Arnold Rapido tank cars. They have those oddball trucks with large bolster hole. They snap onto the bolsters.  They came with plastic wheels with metal axles (with huge pizza-cutter flanges). I think I body-mounted the MT couplers on those. I would have to dig them up to verify that. If I did, I used 1023s.

[wcfn100]

The best tank car model in my book you cannot get any more. It was the old Arnold Rapido car with nice almost scale sized metal hand rails. I obtained a bunch, nice proto paint schemes. A big problem though, very very hard convert to Micro Trains coupler mounted trucks, I never tried body mounting.

You can shorten an MTL under frame to fit the Arnold car.  Not a lot of work, but you do have to reinforce the frame so it won't pull apart under stress.

Jason

[bbussey]

The detail on that Arnold model is representative of the era in which it was tooled.  It doesn't come close to standing up with today's models without a lot of work.

Good info regarding what the Type-XX designates.  So it would seem that all three of the current tank car models (BMann, IM and MTL) are on Type-27 underframes, with the IM being 8K, the Bmann being 10K, and the MTL possibly representative of the 12K prototype.

[PGE_Modeller]

The Bachmann tank comes quite close to matching the dimensions of a group of tank cars built for the British American Oil Company by Standard Tank Car Co, in March - August, 1923 (BAOX 347 - 396), but the underframe is definitely NOT a Standard Tank Car Co frame.

From: Canadian Railway and Marine World
April 1923, p. 168

The British American Oil Co., Toronto, has ordered 50 type A center anchorage tank cars from Standard Tank Car Co., Sharon, Pa..

The principal dimensions will be as follows:                                     Bachmann model dimensions

Length over striking plates ............................... 35 ft. 9 in.             (37 ft. 3 in.)
Length overall of tank ....................................    32 ft. 11 in.           (33 ft. 6 in.)
Bend line to bend line ................................  31 ft. 4 3/4 in.             (31 ft. 10 in.)
Height overall ............................................   14 ft. 6 7/8 in.            (14 ft. 3 in.)
Distance between truck centers ................................ 25 ft.            (25 ft. 8 in.)
Truck wheelbase ................................................   5 ft. 6 in.
Capacity of tank ............................................     10,050 gall.            (10,065 gal.)

The cars will be mounted on 50-ton arch bar trucks and will be equipped with Cardwell G-11 draft gears

The cars were later re-trucked with cast steel trucks (primarily Symington but some received National B-1)

British American Oil Co. records give a tank inside diameter of 87 1/2" while the Bachmann model has a tank outside diameter of 88"
British American records give a dome inside diameter of 58" and a dome capacity of 268 gallons; the Bachmann model scales at 60" dome outside diameter and dome capacity of 260 gallons.

Unlike the Bcahmann car, the B/A cars had the safety valves aligned on the longitudinal centreline of the car.

Prototype photo at: http://www.nakina.net/photos/baox/baox000358.jpg

Cheers,   

[sd45elect2000]

Its a very simple job to mount the Bachmann tank onto an Intermountain underframe. I have some pictures on the other forum. With this change to the underframe the Bachmann car is improved 100% and will better represent an ACF built car of the period, not some obscure car. with some careful trimming you can even use the Intermountain tank straps.

After the transplant, a train of Intermountain 8K tanks and Bachmann 10K tanks just looks right.

I bought an Arnold car just because I was told it was a good looking car. I mounted it on an Intermountain underframe but it still looks out of place with the finer IM and Bachman cars. I can say the same about the MT cars.

The Atlas 11K cars are great looking cars and look right in the train, I change nothing with the Atlas cars.

The Intermountain underframes are available direct from Intermountain and cost very little, I think I paid 75 cents a piece. I have about 50 Bachmann cars riding on IM underframes. In fact if anyone wants my Bachmann underframes they are welcome to them !!

FYI, Intermountain recently announced a re-release of the 8000 gallon car in many new paint schemes..

Randy

[wcfn100]

So it would seem that all three of the current tank car models (BMann, IM and MTL) are on Type-27 underframes, with the IM being 8K, the Bmann being 10K, and the MTL possibly representative of the 12K prototype.

Which means we have no 8k or 10k tank car built after 1949. 

I'm looking at what it will take to convert the Bachmann model to something more representative of a later welded car.  It's probably going to require some custom etched pieces due to the safety platforms at which point new running boards can be etched as well.


Jason

[CoalPorter]

Maybe prototype tank cars would be a good area for the rapid-prototypers ? the  Ed Kaminski ACF book,
which has tons of nice tank car photos and makes it pretty clear that proto tank car models are impossible to really make, then you have the problem needing mosly white printed decals ? 

[sd45elect2000]

Some of the Atlas tank cars could be counted as 10k cars. Some pressurized and insulated cars may have been 10,000 gallon and the were built after 1949.

The early 50s was the transition time into the stub sill era. The 60s onward were almost exclusively stub sill cars. There weren't that many 8000 gallon cars or small capacity cars built after the 40s. You might find some special cars like Bromide cars or something that were low capacity but most cars after 1950 were getting pretty big.

I have seen the old ACF 8000 and 10,000 gallon cars in service into the late 70s. A tank car built in 1927 would have lasted  until 1967 or 40 years old. 40 years is a magic number. If your railroads date is say.. 1977, you would still see many cars built in the late 30s (1937 being the cutoff). The cars may be equipped with roller bearings in plain journal boxes or something, perhaps be modernized in some other regard or downgraded into other commodity service.

Randy

[wcfn100]

There weren't that many 8000 gallon cars or small capacity cars built after the 40s. You might find some special cars like Bromide cars or something that were low capacity but most cars after 1950 were getting pretty big.

Like all freight cars, tank cars were getting bigger, but there were still lots of 8000-10000 (and smaller) gallon welded cars being built in the 50s and 60's.

My particular need is a corn syrup car (I can give many different examples/companies of corn syrup cars like CPC International), but there were many other commodities that still used these cars as well (anti knock compound, rosin, liquid sugar, cyanimide...).

Here's a good example of a car built in '64.

http://freight.railfan.ca/cgi-bin/image.pl?i=cclx3052&o=cclx

Part of a 55 car order and just one example of several CPC orders.

Jason

[Cajonpassfan]

Type-XX as designated from AC&F does not include the tank, it's just the under frame. 

edit:

From Edward Kaminski's ACF Tank Car book.

I'm not going to argue the point.   I can only go with the resources I have.  I'm open to any new info if you can cite any.

Jason

I stand corrected and enlightened about the Type 27 label applying to the underframe rather than the whole car.
Apparently this is indeed a popular misconception, as much of the modeling literature, including Ted Culotta's tank car book, refer to the entire car as Type 27 design.

Quoting Ted's book,

"On July 1, 1927 the ARA class specifications were superseded by new ICC specifications......
American Car & Foundry modified its standard car design by moving to longer, narrower tanks on longer underframes...... This tank and underframe would be the AC&F standard to the era of welded tanks. This design received the designation Type 27."

Perhaps we can agree that for the purposes of building accurate models, generally only post-1927 (29) AC&F design bodies belong on an AC&F Type 27 underframe?
Regards, Otto K.

[Cajonpassfan]

On another matter relative to the new Bachmann single dome cars, as much as like them and consider them a nice addition to my rolling stock, they are very light. Has anyone figured out a practical way to add weight to them? If one could only remove the dome....
Otto K.

[wcfn100]

On another matter relative to the new Bachmann single dome cars, as much as like them and consider them a nice addition to my rolling stock, they are very light. Has anyone figured out a practical way to add weight to them? If one could only remove the dome....
Otto K.

Otto, the upper and lower tank sections separate quite easily.  The weight inside is just heat welded in place.

I did remove remove the dome, but that's another story...

Jason

[Cajonpassfan]

Jason, I tried that on one of my cars, with no luck. Maybe I need to try another....