Small project: an old brass tank car

I have in my collected brass items, a Soho “1920 tank car,” so called, with two compartments. I first acquired this model way back in 1979, when it was not very old. I once painted it black and lettered it for a Union Tank Car prototype, UTLX 289, a prototype that was much the wrong size, being only 6000 gallons, distinctly less than the size of the Soho model. This has always kind of bugged me, and I decided to do better.

First, let’s find out how big this model tank car really is. The volume of a cylinder is of course easy to calculate, as we’ve all learned, but you then need to convert your cubic inches or cubic feet into water gallons. I explained and showed how to do this in a tank car post some time back (see it at: https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2012/10/naperville-tank-car-handout-part-2.html ). 

For the model being considered, here are the dimensions. The diameter is 96 scale inches, the length 384 scale inches. This is a volume of 12,300 gallons. The usual allowance for the internal bulkheads of the two compartments is 10 to 15 percent, making the net volume about 11,500 gallons.

Here’s a view of this model, repainted a “muted black,” Tamiya “Rubber Black” (TS-82), to cover the old lettering. The elbow safety valves are kind of oversize, and the steel “diamond tread plate” running board a little unusual for a car of this age, but I going to live with all of that.

There happen to be Tichy decals for a two-compartment tank car of about this size, Tichy set 10360, for a SHPX car leased to J.M. Huber printing inks. The decals offer several car numbers, but only one of them, SHPX 91, is for a prototype two-compartment tank car. I decided to letter the Soho model for this car. It needs to have route card boards added underneath the running board, located at the lefthand body bolster on each side, made from scale 2 x 6-inch styrene.

I have discussed the Huber ink company previously on this blog, and have even shown a prototype photo of SHPX 91 (see that post at: https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2012/10/small-modeling-project-huber-tank-car.html ). The real SHPX 91 was a smaller and more slender-proportioned tank car, but I will accept the Soho model as a stand-in.

Since I have a printing company on my layout, I have a destination for this car to be switched. I already have a model of another Huber car, SHPX 6031, as was described in the post linked in the preceding paragraph. For that car, I created artwork for custom decals, following the prototype photos shown in that post. But here is the Soho tank car with the Tichy lettering.

Note that the lessee’s information is centered on the tank, instead of toward the right end of the car side, as was commonly seen. But that right-end location is common on single-compartment tank cars, because it locates that information away from any spills from the dome. Here, the centered location accomplishes the same avoidance of any dome spillage.  

Having protected the new decals with a coat of clear flat, I weathered the tank with my usual acrylic washes, added route cards with canopy glue, and included a few chalk marks. The appearance is now definitely not merely a black tank car.

As I mentioned, I do have a layout industry to which this car cab suitably be switched, and below is an example of that in progress.

This has been an interesting upgrade and, I think, improvement of an old brass tank car model, despite its shortcomings as an accurate depiction of a prototype. I will enjoy seeing it being switched on the layout.

Tony Thompson