Tank car capacity by year

[Philip H]

Do we have a good on-line reference for when (generally) each size/capacity of tank car would be used?  I'm trying to right size and right era my fleet to 1995-2005 and am wondering if my 17,500 Atlas cars will be ok to retain.

Thanks!

[davefoxx]

Are you talking about the Trinity 17,600 gallon corn syrup tank car?  (I don't see a 17,500 gallon tank car available from Atlas.)  If so, according to Atlas' website, those cars were built between 1984 and 1998 and most remain in service today.  For example:

http://www.atlasrr.com/NFreight/ntrinity.htm
http://www.atlasrr.com/NFreight/ntrinity5.htm

Hope this helps,
DFF

[Philip H]

Sorry, wrong capacity:

http://www.atlasrr.com/NFreight/n173tank3.htm

But aside from these specific cars, I'm looking for a general guide.

[davefoxx]

Sorry, wrong capacity:

http://www.atlasrr.com/NFreight/n173tank3.htm

But aside from these specific cars, I'm looking for a general guide.

Sorry, but I can't help you in either case.    Hopefully, somebody here can.  And, if not, you could do some research and become the Jerry LaBoda of tank cars.

DFF

[Ed Kapuscinski]

It's not so much capacity as it is car style.

You're good with those cars provided the schemes are ok.

For example, this is too old for you.



And this one should be ok on the newer end.



I think the thing you've gotta be watching for were the appearances of the vertical yellow "moron marks" and the "spreadsheet" of data over on the right side. I don't remember the details, but I'm sure you can google them.

[Philip H]

Since I'm running 1995-2005 I can squeak moron marks on a few cars as thats close to the beginning.  And the colorful logos did occasionally come up in local or plant to plant service during that era, though most have been painted out.

Part of the reason I asked here is I do a lot of internet searching using terms that make sense to me, but don't return the answer I'm looking for (i know, google isn't yet wired to think like me individually but I sure wish it did). So I throw stuff out here in hopes someone else will use different terms and hit the jackpot I missed.

[GonzoCRFan]

Do we have a good on-line reference for when (generally) each size/capacity of tank car would be used?  I'm trying to right size and right era my fleet to 1995-2005 and am wondering if my 17,500 Atlas cars will be ok to retain.

Thanks!

Philip,

Unlike most other types of cars, you can't really correlate car size and built-date with tank cars because tank cars are usually designed to carry one specific commodity, and are therefore sized accordingly. There were experiments in the early 1960s that yielded tankcars with capacities of between 50-60K gallons, but these never took off in terms of popularity because their huge size didn't always work well with in-plant clearances, plus they also took up the space of 2 regular cars but didn't carry twice as much commodity. That, and in 1970, the federal government prohibited the construction of cars with a maximum gross rail load of 263K pounds or sized greater than 34,500 gallons.

So, until the feds allow larger cars to be built, you're going to see the same size cars in the same commodity service. Cars carrying heavier stuff like chlorine, sulfuric acid or sodium hydroxide will be in the 17-18K gallon range, things closer in weight to water will be around 25K, and light hydrocarbons are going to be pushing that 34.5K capacity. 

[SirTainly]

Bit of googling got some info on the ho versions versions of the cars being from 1968 onwards. One apparently had a valve test date of 1998 so as Ed mentioned you are most likely ok with some of the schemes.