so I was looking at Googlemaps for proto information and I came across an odd car....any ideas of what this is?
Tank car of some sort or the other. Sometimes these oogle google maps will allow you to look at the picture from the side. Any chances that will work here?
I think GoogleEarth satellite views and GoogleEarth Street Views are not taken at the same time. Probably not usually, in fact. But that's just my guess.
Google Maps does offer a three-dimensional view option in many locations that is not associated with, or dependent on Street View. IIRC, I looked at the large NS yard in Chattanooga with 3-D view a few years ago.
I tried getting a closer view, but there are buildings on both sides of the tracks, so no street view is available.
Can't tell whether that is a car or loco at the top but the next two cars do appear to be double dome cars while the bottom car may also be a double dome of a different type. Car to the right that can be partially seen appears to be single dome. Type of facility could be a clue as to car use as far as commodity carried. And obviously the location of the photo and then looking for the local industries would provide further insight. Other than that I would say those are special cars for carrying Marvin's PU 235 explosive space modulators.
that's the fun question...there is a liquid feed plant, a wood distributor., a metal fab company and a plastic tubing company...to me it looks like the Tomix/Atlas track cleaning car. it's right in here: http://goo.gl/maps/Iaq6p
I believe that this tank car may be one of the hazmat training cars. There are several of these roaming the country and they tend to have more than one hatch / dome and more substantial platforms than normal tank cars which this one appears to have. It's parked on one of the yard sidings near a facility that uses tank cars and that makes sense. I saw one of these once years ago near Redding, California while visiting a club layout. I might not have known what is was then except I was with one of my train buddies who is a fireman and he had trained on one and spotted it right away. I Googled "hazmat training tank car" and this is one of the images I came up with. Anyway that's my guess, something like this would sure make a great car bash project ! Brad My Blogs: http://www.palisadecanyonrr.blogspot.com/ http://www.tokyo-in-nscale.blogspot.com/ http://n-scale-dcc.blogspot.com/
What you're seeing as double domes are fairly commonplace, the first, third, and foutrth cars to me look like single dome tankers with a secondary hatch. Athearn does an HO model like this, but its not a true second dome like the second car is. RE the trainign car, that really doesn't look like it to me either. Its not brightly colored, and the hatches are centered, not spaced out for multiple occupants. Back to the drawing board? EDIT: And then I find this beastie...
Ok....been staring at that picture now for a few days. I finally downloaded it and cropped the lighter grey colored car out of the picture...if thats the car in question. I cropped tha tank out and expanded the picture of the tank car and cleaned the image up best I could. My original thought when I saw the OP's picture the first time was that the areas in front and behind the loading platform where raised above the tank. Turned out to be just an illusion !! The tank is shorter but larger in diameter then the one in front and behind it. It has one slightly larger dome and a manway in the loading platform area. The black line on the left...appears to be piping of some sort that runs the length of the car...along just the one side of the loading platform...and down both the front and rear of the tank. Why?...I dont know. Could be an aftermarket modification though ;-)
I saw one of these scrapped last year at the old EJ&E yard nearby. Still kick myself for not getting a picture of it !!! Never even found out what it carried. It was the only one I had ever seen, 'til now.
Way back sometime ago I read an article that may have been in Trains magazine on just such cars. Yes the memory finally jogged into play. Essentially it was a unit train with all the cars connected by a piping system that allowed a one point piping system for filling and unloading to speed up the turn around time of the cars like a unit coal train. A cannot remember how many cars made up the unit but the cars had a flexible piping connection between them. Obviously the idea didn't work out that well or we would have seen more of them. Problem with some stuff one sees on Google Earth and maps is that some is dated by quite a bit so that view may be ten years old.
Looked a little further and found that the cars were developed by GATX and both Lionel and Athearn made models of these cars. http://www.athearn.com/Products/Default.aspx?ProdID=ATHG67821 In the enhanced photo one can see the piping out over the end of the car. There appears like there were several versions of the car and the Athearn car appears to be a newer version.
John, good guess, but it was not a Tank Train car...I have seen plenty of these on Tehachapi from the top....
