More on the Associated oil dealer model

I posted recently a brief description of my column for the March 2014 issue of Model Railroad Hobbyist, presenting my model of an oil dealership. The post can be seen at: http://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2014/03/associated-oil-co-modeling-oil-dealer.html . I received an off-line comment to the effect that I should have shown tank cars spotted on the oil dealer’s spur, and indeed I did take photos of that kind, but didn’t include them in the column. They are shown below.
     I also realized upon re-reading the column as it was published, that a correction I made at the proof stage did not make it into the final magazine version. On page 17 of the column (MRH paginates each part of the magazine separately), at the end of the paragraph about my pump house, the concluding sentence is pretty garbled. Here is what it should say: “The McGraw Oil kit provides small brick structures for the office and the pump house; this style of building may be fine in the east or midwest, but would not be typical in the west.” How the MRH editor(s) arrived at what was finally published escapes me entirely.
     Now to those photos. Petroleum products could of course arrive either in company-owned tank cars or in cars leased from companies such as General American, but the likeliest are those operated by the company itself. Thus the Associated Oil tank car that I showed in the column, a brass Soho model which is a stand-in, is one logical car which could be switched to the Associated spur. Here it is shown alongside the bottom unloading hose connection point. (You can click on the image to enlarge it.)

In this photo, foreground oil and water columns can be seen, which are part of the Shumala engine terminal and have nothing to do with the Associated facility.
     Shipments of propane  likewise can arrive in Tidewater Associated fleet tank cars, or in leased cars. Here is a California Dispatch Line (CDLX 1528) tank car doing that job (the model is the recent Atlas LPG car). It is of course spotted at the unloading platform for propane.

In addition to tank cars as the most common visitors to this Associated dealer, an occasional box car with packaged petroleum products would be spotted at the warehouse loading dock, though I have not photographed such a car spot.
     The purpose of the oil dealer model is partly to establish a scenery segment, but more important (to me) is that it is a switching destination. So as I see it, these photos show my model of an Associated bulk oil dealer performing the role that I designed it to do.
Tony Thompson