I have set up a Mobil Gas fuel dealer and was wondering which tank cars to get. I see there are many types and companys. The time period for this is the mid seveneties when BN came on becuse i plan on using GN,NP, Burlington and SP&S locos. Alan
In the 50's most small towns had a oil distributor that sold wholesale products to most of the independent service stations in town and wholesale accounts to the local farmers. The wholesaler was Mr. Roberts Oil Company (ficticious name) and since he purchased from Shell it was Shell oil tank cars that delivered the goods. Occasionally an unmarked car would sneek in but that was rare. You might want to consider using the name brand of the oil company your Mr. Roberts is purchasing from.
If you want Mobil, you might want to check the BLW web site. Pete had a special run done by MTL. This is a 3-pack in the red scheme, black dome, large white lettering. A few years ago he had the Mobiil flying horse scheme done. I really wanted that, but was not able to get it as he does not ship outside the USA.
Also couldn't you use leased/generic tank cars...GATX, UTLX, and maybe small out-of-state drilling and refining companies?
Protype references: Mobilgas SVX 2127 (Socony-Vacuum Central Region) USRA design, blt 1954, AAR III TM, 10000 gal photo: Model Railroading MarchApril 84 p.32 pix Mobilgas, 1 dome tank, end distorted perspective view 1940 in Coach, Cabbage & Caboose (Santa Fe book) p.115 Texas Mobil subsidiary from 1950s, Magnolia Petroleum Magnolia MPCX 43 6000 gallon TM listed 1954 Reg. end pix overturned in train wreck 1930s? _Journal Tx Shortline RRs_ MayJunJul98(Paris & Mt.Pleas.issue) p.3 Magnolia MPCX 725 tankcar 10,000 gallon type 21. pix of Lifelike Proto 2000 model, _ModRRer_ Apr2000 p.61 Magnolia MPCX725 pix Proto 2000 HO model _ModRRer_ Aug2000 p.75 MPCX 825 Magnolia shown in Walthers PLD-1 54 Eqpt Reg shows TM 9400 gallon ARA III. MPCX 1536 Magnolia 10K gallon ACF type 21 insulated/jacketed listed 1954 Eqpt Reg as TMI, class ARA IV pix HO model Walthers. Model Railroader May06 p.16
More on modeling oil company tank cars running to bulk oil dealers. My layout(s) were/are/will be set in Texas in middle 1950s, and I enjoy seeing tank cars in the logos on what were the 1950s Texas subsidiaries of national oil companies. CONOCO GULF (became part of Chevron) HUMBLE (became Enco. became Exxon, now ExxonMobil) MAGNOLIA (Texas subsidiary of Mobil) PHILLIPS 66 SHELL SINCLAIR (became part of Arco) TEXACO I have modeled all of these except Humble. Also have a WARREN. (Gulf bought Warren Petroleum of Oklahoma in mid1950s acquiring a huge fleet of tankcars which were used to handle Gulf products, with Warren reporting marks intact) Here are a few of my oil co tankcars, Conoco, Magnolia, Phillips CONX 180 (model: Bachmann #5424) copied in N scale from an Athearn HO model shown in Model RRer{/i] Apr02 p.44 prototype car number listed in 1954 Official Railway Eqpt Register TM 80,000 # capy. MPCX 726 (Arnold Rapido model) copied in N scale from pix of Lifelike Proto 2000 HO model seen in Model RRer{/i], Apr2000 p.61 and Model RRer{/i] Aug2000 p.75 prototype car number listed in 1954 Official Railway Eqpt Register TM 10,000 gallon type 21. PSPX9230 (Arnold Rapido model) based on a 1930s photo in Warbonnet 3Q 96 p.7 (publication of then Santa Fe Modelers Assn) and car number from Walthers Prototype Lettering Diagrams (out of print?) I had one only (count them, 1!) bulk oil dealer on my East Texas layout, JAYCO Phillips 66 which got its supply from the Phillips 66 refinery at Houston (Santa Vaca on my version of Texas). I would like to write about how I njustify running all these different company tank cars, with only one bulk noil dealer, but my wife wants me to put lunch on the table. Later...
Bulk oil dealers My last layout had one Phillips 66 bulk oil dealer, Jayco, located in Johnston, a courthouse square town that was the layout’s main scene. The model was scratchbuilt to copy a Phillips 66 bulk oil dealer in Sealy, Texas. Medium sized towns such as the one I model, a “county seat” town often have several competing brand bulk oil dealers, usually in the same area of town and sometimes sharing spots along the same spur. They receive petroleum by tankcar, and distribute it by tank truck to retail dealers (service stations) within a 30 to 60 mile radius. It is not absolutely necessary to have a branded retail service station modeled in the same town as the bulk oil dealer of the same brand, since the bulk oil is distributed by tank truck over a 30 to 60 mile radius. In Johnston, I had a Phillips 66 bulk oil dealer, but a Magnolia service station. Magnolia was distributed by tank truck from another dealer in a town somewhere “down the line”. If I have only one bulk oil dealer, how do I justify all the different oil company brand tankcars. I simply run most of them on through trains, rather than on the local that switches my main town scene. Phillips 66 were delivered to my modeled bulk oil dealer by a local (“peddler”) train from the (unmodeled) refinery at Santa Vaca (my version of Houston.) But through trains from “Lost River” (my version of Beaumont, unmodeled, represented by staging) ran through my modeled scene, carrying brand-name tankcars from Gulf, Magnolia and Texaco, which had refineries at Beaumont in real life. That is a justification for cars going by in through trains. What about the other brands of oil company which do not have refineries at Beaumont. They wouldn’t be shipping their products to Beaumont which already has plenty of locally-produced petroleum, would they? That would be like “shipping coals to Newcastle,” wouldn’t it? However, I found railroad industry spur records which showed that Sinclair and Shell DID have bulk oil dealers in Beaumont-- perhaps to maintain a brand presence in the middle of their competitors’ refining centers. So I represented the oil business with 1 bulk oil dealer, 1 service station and tankcars bearing the names of Conoco, Gulf, Magnolia, Phillips 66, Shell, Sinclair, Texaco and Warren. I have dismantled the East Texas layout to build an Island Seaport layout based on Galveston. I have kept the bulk oil dealer to relocate at Karankawa (MY island seaport.) Because the island seaport is an end-of-the-line terminal, there is little justification for through traffic. And Galveston is NOT an oil port. Texas City, on the mainland nearby is the oil and refinery port. I will justify SOME tankcar traffic as backhaul, which comes to the island seaport on a through train, and then is backhauled to Tidelands on a local peddler. One other “industry” on one of my layouts which is very similar to a bulk oil dealer-- the “fuel dump” on a Navy base for blimps. This is supposedly on the mainland just a handful of miles inland from the island seaport, and is modeled on a 2x3’ portable layout. The fuel dump is basically a military version of the bulk oil dealer. It receives petroleum by tankcar, and distributes by tanker truck to aircraft. The fuel dump is the last picture in this 3 picture set: Notice that it contains standpipes for unloading tankcars, pumphouse, storage tanks and tankcar loading rack.
