Blue tank wagon identification - Manchester docks mid 1960s

[Mol_PMB]

In the discussion on the Manchester Ship Canal Railway, @Stephen Freeman has very kindly posted some photos taken from a cruise around Manchester docks in the mid 1960s, with plenty of views of MSC Railway activity (link below).

 

Two of the images show rakes of blue tank wagons; they are a variety of sizes and designs but all in a consistent livery with the same logo - see pics below.

The location is on the north bank of the canal near Weaste. I think the storage tanks in one of the photos were at one time owned by the Southern Cotton Oil company, later just Southern Oil and eventually Kraft foods - they also had a site on Trafford Park.

But I'm not sure whether they were still associated with the Weaste site in the mid-1960s and there were several other oil terminals in this area for different firms so the tank wagons might not be associated with Southern Cotton Oil.

 

The wagons are too distant to read the lettering or logo, but it's not a livery I am familiar with (none of the obvious big oil firms). Blue is quite an unusual colour for an oil tank wagon.

I've been through @hmrspaul's website and Tourret's 'Petroleum rail tank wagons of Britain' and failed to find a match.

The logo looks a little like the Procor one, but Tourret's book says that Procor (UK) was formed in 1970, 5 years after this photo was taken.

 

Can anyone identify the owner of these wagons? A smaller oil company or perhaps a wagon leasing firm?

 

Many thanks,

Mol

 

[balders]

Is it a case of "black looking blue" due to the ageing process in the film reproduction or the film stock? 

 

I thought the single star was old school dirty petrol carried in black tanks. Certainly very atmospheric photographs! 

 

Regards

 

Guy

[Nearholmer]

Henry Diaper, a Liverpool logistics firm that is still going, used a blue livery for tank wagons - could they be his/theirs?

 

But, blue with a large yellow diamond, which I think we can see in the second photo, was Colas bitumen, so possibly that?

 

 

Edited March 13, 2021 by Nearholmer

[Mol_PMB]

Just now, balders said:

Is it a case of "black looking blue" due to the ageing process in the film reproduction or the film stock? 

 

I thought the single star was old school dirty petrol carried in black tanks. Certainly very atmospheric photographs! 

 

Regards

 

Guy

Thanks for the reply. I did wonder about it being 'black looking blue' but there are certainly some 'black looking black' features in the photos, and there appears to be black spillage on the tanks themselves.

 

One star indicated suitable for running in medium-speed trains, with oil axleboxes (rather than grease).

 

Oil traffic was divided into low flash point (class A) and class B.

At this time, class A traffic had to be in silver or pale grey tanks with a red solebar. Class B tanks could be any colour but were usually black because they carried black oils and soon became covered in black spillage.

 

 

[Mol_PMB]

3 minutes ago, Nearholmer said:

Henry Diaper, a Liverpool logistics firm that is still going, used a blue livery for tank wagons - could they be his/theirs?

You're right, good thought, and I have another photo showing Henry Diaper bogie tanks (for liquid latex) alongside the Manchester Ship Canal at Cadishead in 1970.

But although they had several batches of bogie tanks including some wartime unfitted ones, I've not seen any evidence that Henry Diaper had 4-wheel tanks.

[Nearholmer]

History of Colas logos, and a Hornby 0 version from the 1930s.

 

Im not certain they are Colas, but I think a strong possibility.

 

 

 

 

[Fat Controller]

12 minutes ago, balders said:

Is it a case of "black looking blue" due to the ageing process in the film reproduction or the film stock? 

 

I thought the single star was old school dirty petrol carried in black tanks. Certainly very atmospheric photographs! 

 

Regards

 

Guy

I thought the 'star' rating was to do with maximum permitted speed, rather than the load being carried?

[Mol_PMB]

3 minutes ago, Nearholmer said:

History of Colas logos, and a Hornby 0 version from the 1930s.

 

Im not certain they are Colas, but I think a strong possibility.

 

 

 

 

That's an interesting suggestion and I can definitely see the likeness - I'll do some searching.

Is the same Colas that's now a freight and on-track plant operator?

[Nearholmer]

It is. They diversified. It’s a huge multinational that I think began as a French firm.

[Fat Controller]

Just now, Mol_PMB said:

That's an interesting suggestion and I can definitely see the likeness - I'll do some searching.

Is the same Colas that's now a freight and on-track plant operator?

Yes; originally a big French road-surfacing company, part of Bouygues, that has diversified since the early 1980s into other markets

[balders]

13 minutes ago, Fat Controller said:

I thought the 'star' rating was to do with maximum permitted speed, rather than the load being carried?

Every day a school day for me when it comes to freight stock! Thanks

 

Regards 

 

Guy

[Mol_PMB]

Like this! 

Remarkably this is in almost exactly the same location as the blue oil tanks in the old photos, though seen from the opposite side.

[Stephen Freeman]

I think logically it would be Fina but I will get the original photos out and have a closer look.

[Michael Hodgson]

Well you can get models of Fina tanks in blue ....

 

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/FINA-tank-wagon-Jouef-Ho-Good-condition-/154034773876

 

https://www.hobbyprof.com/vn865410-tank-wagon-fina-netherlands

 

.. but they don't seem to be what you're after.

[Mol_PMB]

Agreed, Michael. The Fina logo is rather distinctive and has remained similar in style for many years. I don't think it's a Fina logo on the tanks here; both the shape and positioning seem wrong.

To me, the logo on these tanks looks a bit like the Procor one, as on the right-hand end of this tanker, but it's not quite right.

I considered Burmah which had a blue livery on its road tankers and Irish rail tanks, and had a presence in Manchester on the opposite side of the canal, but all the photos I've seen of Burmah tanks have the company name spelt out in large letters that would be legible even at this distance.

 

[Mol_PMB]

We might have an answer, thanks to David Ratcliffe for suggesting it.

As noted in my earlier post, the tank farm which appears in the background to one of the photos of the blue tanks was owned by the Southern Cotton Oil company, later just Southern Oil and eventually Kraft foods - they also had a site on Trafford Park.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kraft_Foods_Inc. tells us:

In 1961, the firm acquired Dominion Dairies of Canada, marking the first effort by the firm to expand into fluid milk and ice cream outside the United States.[20] In the same year it also acquired The Southern Oil Company in Manchester, England.

A 1963 map of Manchester Docks and Trafford Park has the Southern Oil site on TP renamed as Kraft Foods, though the tank farm has not been relabelled and still says Southern Oil

 

Southern Oil and Kraft Foods dealt in edible oils.

Now, this is the Kraft logo:

and I think that's the same logo we see on the side of the blue tank wagons:

 

It's possible that these tanks were 'captive' to the MSC Railway and only ran between the docks and the SCO / Kraft site on Trafford Park. However, if that was the case then they would not have needed the fast traffic stars which are so prominent on the side. So maybe they did also run over BR.

I've never seen photos of them before.

 

 

 

[Mol_PMB]

Incidentally the HMRS archive includes some photos of the Southern Oil tanks when new. Being 20-ton insulated tanks these have slightly different proportions to many contemporary tank wagons, but they do seem to match some of the mystery blue ones.

https://hmrs.org.uk/photographs.html?limit=30&private_owner=1470

[Mol_PMB]

Here are four extracts of aerial photos from Britainfromabove, showing the Southern Oil sites in Manchester.

The 1929 and 1931 photos are both of the Trafford Park site, whereas the 1934 and 1951 photos show the Weaste site which is where the blue tankers were photographed by Stephen in 1965.

All of these are cropped from the background of photos of other sites.

All four of these photos show a variety of tank wagons which may have been later painted blue!

Cheers,

Mol

 

[33C]

On 13/03/2021 at 11:55, Fat Controller said:

I thought the 'star' rating was to do with maximum permitted speed, rather than the load being carried?

One 24" white star = max speed up to and including 35mph. Blue colour scheme indicates class B tank to carry any oil EXCEPT petrol.

[Michael Edge]

On 13/03/2021 at 11:43, Nearholmer said:

Henry Diaper, a Liverpool logistics firm that is still going, used a blue livery for tank wagons - could they be his/theirs?

 

But, blue with a large yellow diamond, which I think we can see in the second photo, was Colas bitumen, so possibly that?

 

 

 

 

On 13/03/2021 at 11:49, Mol_PMB said:

You're right, good thought, and I have another photo showing Henry Diaper bogie tanks (for liquid latex) alongside the Manchester Ship Canal at Cadishead in 1970.

But although they had several batches of bogie tanks including some wartime unfitted ones, I've not seen any evidence that Henry Diaper had 4-wheel tanks.

Do you know of any colour photos of the Henry Diaper tank wagons?

[Mol_PMB]

50 minutes ago, Michael Edge said:

 

 

Do you know of any colour photos of the Henry Diaper tank wagons?

There has been one posted on this forum somewhere, which showed a sort of turquoise blue colour. Have a search for Henry Diaper and it should come up. 

There were several different types and they were quite long-lived: the livery seems to have evolved over time and they may have been darker in earlier years. 

The image at Cadishead in 1970 is black and white. 

[Mol_PMB]

6 hours ago, Michael Edge said:

 

 

Do you know of any colour photos of the Henry Diaper tank wagons?

I've found the original photo for you - the link which had changed since posted on the forum:

https://herefordshirehistory.org.uk/archive/herefordshire-images/herefordshire-railways/166641-barrs-court-railway-sidings-hereford-1972?

[Michael Edge]

Thanks, that looks more green than blue to my eyes though. I would like to build at least one of these bogie tankers for Herculaneum Dock.

[Mol_PMB]

3 minutes ago, Michael Edge said:

Thanks, that looks more green than blue to my eyes though. I would like to build at least one of these bogie tankers for Herculaneum Dock.

There were several small batches, all different from each other. I think the turquoise one at Hereford was one of the last batch which appear to be lagged (unlike the earlier ones) and also had ferry tie-downs.

I have seen a photo of some on Hornby Dock, also several photos at the Henry Diaper site near Kirkby.

As well as the large vac-braked tanks built by the LMS and BR, Henry Diaper acquired some smaller unfitted bogie tanks built for the Ministry of Food in WWII; these were similar to the ICI bogie tanks.

 

Here is the image showing some of the vac-braked type at British Tar Products in Cadishead on the MSC; this was taken in 1970 by David Gallichan who lives locally and I have met a few times when photographing ships.

Mol

[Mol_PMB]

To go back to the blue 4-wheel tanks at the start of the thread, David Ratcliffe has been through the Manchester Library archives in an effort to resolve this query.

He has found a (black and white) photo of the Kraft Foods diesel shunter coupled to two of these tanks in Trafford Park. The position of the Kraft logo and the arrangement of the lettering is identical to that shown in Stephen's colour photos, so I think that gives us final confirmation that they are Kraft Foods tanks, previously Southern Oil.

Unfortunately we cannot share the image here, but David has also found some info which suggests they might have occasionally travelled over BR lines as well as the MSC Railway.

I think he is now considering a little magazine article about them in due course...