Tank cars

[kamerad47]

Here is a couple of pics of some tank cars I've been working on for my small Bio fuel plant !! hock:

[jwb]

The blue bearing ends are a nice touch.

[ngauger]

Nice work!!

[Mike Kieran]

Your pictures and work never cease to draw my undivided attention.

[Southern Tuxedo]

The weathering looks subtle, but spot-on. Are those Atlas tank cars?

Mark

[e-paw]

They look great but for 75 cents you are selling yourself short.

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[kamerad47]

They are Atlas cars , they are nice but the railings are kind of flimsy !! They cost me about 50 bucks for two , & thats alot for me !!!!! Take a look at these Athearn Blue box cars i bought for 2 for $10.00 !!! I run modern cars so I did some work on one of them to modernize it , I cut the side walkways off & put end railings on . What do you think 2 for $50 or 2 for $10 ?? That's what i like to do make something new again !!!!! hock:

[jwb]

I always enjoy seeing your work -- you're one of the few people who actually seems to look at the prototype, come back and put in on a layout, and have fun doing it.

The first thing that occurs to me is you'd really fool some folks if you added conspicuity stripes to the bluebox car you modernized:
   
The second thing, though, is that you can get away with running the unmodernized car with running boards longer than you might think. I was seeing cars like that in the Los Angeles area in the early to mid 1980s:
   
   
Keep the good stuff coming!

[kamerad47]

Here is a couple of pic's of the finished cars!!!! One is the athearn & the other is the atlas car !!! And a quick tip , I buy these garage sale sticks a the $1 store cut the yellow sticker in thin strips with & A-xacto knife a stick them on all my cars!!! hock:

[Sumpter250]

The first thing that occurs to me is you'd really fool some folks if you added conspicuity stripes to the bluebox car you modernized:
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I've done a number of tank cars of about the same era, using photos of prototypes. the models were built around 1983-1987, and the photos did not show "conspicuity stripes".
When did those begin to appear on rail cars ? :o :?: ( most of my stuff is steam era )

[jwb]

After 2000. They aren't all on yet, but more and more cars have them. Just for fun, here's a shot from this past June of two cars in the same series, one with stripes and one without:
   

[shortliner]

Conspicuity stripes - quickest and easiest way to make them is look on ebay for nail tape - that stuff the ladies use to decorate their fingernails - if you have a nail salon you may even get it locally - comes in all sorts of colours and widths (mainly from China) I have some 1/64th black that works very well for strapping for lumber and for tiedowns just as an example eBay item number: 171098078171 - if you can't get the colour you want apply some paint to the tape before sticking

[Mr Fixit]

Conspicuity stripes: Going from memory here goes. The short answer is that all locomotives and railcars in interchange capable service must be fitted with the stripes by May or June 2015.

New cars and loco's built after 2005 must be fitted with them prior to delivery. For all other cars and loco's in a fleet must be fitted out at the rate of 10% per year minimum to achieve full compliance by 2015. Cars that were voluntarily taped prior to these rules and are not fully compliant can remain so taped until next overhaul/repaint.

The primary colour to use is yellow, but white can be used but needs 50% more tape to be compliant. This is primarily because white is the colour chosen for use by the trucking industry and for the need to make it easy to distinguish between a railcar and a semi-trailer.

The ends of a railcar must have double the amount of stripe to delineate the ends of the car. The remainder required is then evenly spaced along the car or locomotive. The stripes can be either vertical or horizontal but must be the same orientation along the car. Tank cars stripes are vertical so as to catch car headlights on the rounded surface.

For a more detailed answer if you are going to model these stripes, I suggest you google tape manufacturers as they often have easy to follow examples for different railcar types that can be downloaded.

Hope this helps. Mark
ps so much for a short answer

[kamerad47]

I buy these garage sale stickers a the $1 store cut the yellow sticker in thin strips with & A-xacto knife a stick them on all my cars!!! hock:

[jwb]

Microscale makes MC-4389. Biggest drawback is they only have the smaller stripe, and you have to double the end stripes yourself.