100 Tonne TEA Tanks

[Redsrail]

Good afternoon all.

                             I've been sorting through my collection of 100 tonne TEA bogie tank wagons, 23 in total, and a thought occurred to me....would these be run in rakes of wagons all with the same company branding or was it a case of "oh, there's an empty tank, we'll use that". I'm also aware that certain fuel / petroleum companies are linked such as Shell and BP, but which others are part of a larger group please..? I've looked on Google and there seems to be a few rakes with unbranded and branded wagons mixed, maybe the unbranded are pool wagons..? The wagons i have already are BP, Shell BP, Fina, Gulf and Total, yes i know i should have considered the above before gathering all these together, but hey what's done is done. I did consider repainting some of the more uncommon tanks into unbranded pool vehicles but wanted to check here before wielding the paint.

                                                                  Any advice on this is much appreciated. Thanks. Terry.

[eastwestdivide]

Any particular time period? Shell and BP might have been linked once, but that's not been the case for many many years. Before the 1990s, I think all TEAs were privately-owned, some by the oil companies, but others by leasing companies like Procor. The latter would be the nearest you'd get to a "pool" wagon, some being branded with an company name, others not. 

More recently (not my period really), I think there were some railway-owned (EWS?) bogie tanks. 

[Redsrail]

Sorry, completely forgot to mention era. The layout is based around mid eighties kind of time frame just before BR was split into sectors.

[eastwestdivide]

In that period, they'd be mostly in uniform rakes, and not as long as today's monster trains. By then, BP and Shell were already separated, BP with their own tanks with BPO-prefixed numbers and Shell with SUKO-prefixed numbers, but few of either carried much in the way of company branding.

Just looking through my own photos for 84-86, and the predominant liveries are dirty black and dirty light grey.

Here's an exception, a clean BP one at Hoo Junction about 1983, first in a rake of mostly dirty ones. Note that the BP branding isn't particularly large or prominent:

 

Here's a more typical one, from 1985, also Hoo Junction, showing no branding, a similarly dirty one to the left, and a branded one slightly cleaner to the right:

 

Here's some Total ones, about 1983, Leicester, with a different design as the third tank (TRL logo? - a leasing company), and an SPA as a barrier/reach wagon (used if the loco wasn't allowed inside the terminal gates):

 

And here's a complete rake of (10?) BP black ones with varying degrees of spillage down the sides, 1983-ish, Strood:

[Redsrail]

Hello,

        Thanks very much for the photo's, lots of nice weathering detail on those, especially like the third one with the mill type building in the background. Anyway i had another look at what i have and the majority of them are Shell, BP or Shell BP branded, so i'll repaint the odd ones into leasing wagons, shouldn't be too big of a job even for someone like me to paint them grey whilst saving the tops panel (famous last words !!). I'll get 2 or 3 rakes out of them either way, then they need a nice mucky weathering job, so it would appear. Thanks once more for sharing your knowledge and photo's.

                                           Terry.

[eastwestdivide]

One more thing - it would be unusual to have black and grey ones in the same rake.

[Redsrail]

Oh...now you've thrown a spanner in the works. Is there a reason why they're not mixed..? 2 different products possibly..?

[Rivercider]

I agree with Eastwestdivide, in that timeframe they would be allocated to a pool for each specific traffic flow, so would not normally get mixed up.

 

One reason you might get a mixed rake would be if there was a nearby wagon repair depot (Marcroft Engineering, or similar)

but generally a more uniform set would look right.

 

cheers

[eastwestdivide]

Grey ones were "light" or more volatile products like kerosene/aviation fuel/petrol and black were heavier stuff like heavy fuel oil (but not crude). Mostly, trains of TEAs with oil products ran as block services with one product. You might perhaps be able to justify a mixture of the two types as a trip from a refinery to a local yard for splitting, or the modeller's favourite, a trip with various wagons for repair. Some of the aviation fuel services from Grain/Hoo Juncion for Gatwick were a mix of TEA and 4-wheel TTA in that period (80s).

 

More tanker info in these threads:

http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/44646-barrier-wagons-on-oil-trains/

http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/26032-100-ton-tank-train-formations-1970s/

http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/28114-bp-thame-oil-tank-liveries/

http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/18086-bp-oil-trains/

 

and I suppose you've found Paul Bartlett's site, e.g. http://paulbartlett.zenfolio.com/?q=TEA

with more photos than you'd think possible for one person to take.

[Redsrail]

Very useful links there making some interesting reading. I actually thought most if not all crude oil went directly to refineries by pipeline or ship. Anyway i'll keep you no longer on the subject, Your help has been great and most welcome. 

                                     Thank you once more. Terry.

[eastwestdivide]

Crude oil mentioned here (Gainsborough, from the Lincolnshire nodding donkey oil fields):

http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/25750-small-terminus-has-small-oil-depot/

 

There may well have been others.

[Fat Controller]

Crude oil mentioned here (Gainsborough, from the Lincolnshire nodding donkey oil fields):

http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/25750-small-terminus-has-small-oil-depot/

 

There may well have been others.

There's an oilfield at Holybourne, near Alton, I believe, which forwards oil by rail to Fawley. The one near Wareham sent (possibly still does) its oil by pipeline to Fawley, but did send the gas by rail to Avonmouth.

Edited June 2, 2013 by Fat Controller

[tomstaf]

In that period, they'd be mostly in uniform rakes, and not as long as today's monster trains. By then, BP and Shell were already separated, BP with their own tanks with BPO-prefixed numbers and Shell with SUKO-prefixed numbers, but few of either carried much in the way of company branding.

Just looking through my own photos for 84-86, and the predominant liveries are dirty black and dirty light grey.

Here's an exception, a clean BP one at Hoo Junction about 1983, first in a rake of mostly dirty ones. Note that the BP branding isn't particularly large or prominent:

N22_0020 TEA BPO 87763.jpg

 

Here's a more typical one, from 1985, also Hoo Junction, showing no branding, a similarly dirty one to the left, and a branded one slightly cleaner to the right:

85-14-34 BPO 87194 TEA tank.jpg

 

Here's some Total ones, about 1983, Leicester, with a different design as the third tank (TRL logo? - a leasing company), and an SPA as a barrier/reach wagon (used if the loco wasn't allowed inside the terminal gates):

M3_0027.jpg

 

And here's a complete rake of (10?) BP black ones with varying degrees of spillage down the sides, 1983-ish, Strood:

N11_0013.jpg

 

Interesting set of photos. Where were the tankers at Hoo headed for?

 

Cheers

 

Tom

[eastwestdivide]

Hoo Junction was the junction for the single line to the Isle of Grain refinery, so there were always BP tankers about the place. Grain closed as a refinery about 1983 ish*, but continued to handle and store products brought in by ship for much longer.

 

Among the traffics were aviation fuel for Gatwick to Salfords (? I think) on the Brighton line, until they built a pipeline. The black tanks at Strood could have been from the paper mills near Aylesford, which had fuel oil deliveries at one point. Otherwise, not sure.

 

Back to the tanks, there's a useful roundup of TEA numbers and operators at http://www.ltsv.com/w_ref_numbers_po3.php , Class A being grey ones and class B being black ones (broadly speaking). Note that the number series for Shell and BP ones tend to have xxx00 to xxx59 as Shell and xxx60 to xxx99 as BP - evidently their once-common fleet was split 60:40 - did this occur when the joint venture was demerged (1976 according to Wikipedia)?

PR, BRT, STS, TRL, RLS, LS were the main prefixes for leasing companies, whose tanks may or may not have been branded. 

 

 

 

*more or less the same time as the Chatham naval dockyard (1984). Those two closure together did wonders for local job prospects just as I finished my education... but that's another story.

Edited June 2, 2013 by eastwestdivide

[Rivercider]

Hoo Junction was the junction for the single line to the Isle of Grain refinery, so there were always BP tankers about the place. Grain closed as a refinery about 1983 ish*, but continued to handle and store products brought in by ship for much longer.

 

 

 

There was a BP service between Grain and Llandarcy for bitumen traffic that lasted a lot longer, which I think was formed of a mix of 45t and 100t tanks

 

cheers

[Redsrail]

Good afternoon gents,

                                  Well what can i say....i come in from work and you lot have been busy. The link to LTSV site is useful for me, not only for these wagons but many different ones. Good stuff.

[Clive Mortimore]

Hi Terry

 

Have you ever considered joining DEMU? Phil Eames wrote a series in deepth of articles on TEAs for their UPDate magazine. Most back numbers are available to members.

[(The) Youth]

And a superb trilogy of articles they are

 

Very useful

 

Simon

[sub39h]

just a follow up question people as i have similar requirements - would the all green BP wagons and the grey wagons with the yellow/grey stripe ever run together?

[Glorious NSE]

You mean like this? Sure.

 

 

(Millbrook, 2007)

 

If you're modelling the 1980s like the OP though i'm pretty sure the green livery was not yet around though, pretty sure that was a 1990s+ livery.

[sub39h]

my era is anywhere from 1986 - just before privatisation basically. thank you for the photo!  

[hmrspaul]

 

 

Back to the tanks, there's a useful roundup of TEA numbers and operators at http://www.ltsv.com/w_ref_numbers_po3.php , Class A being grey ones and class B being black ones (broadly speaking). Note that the number series for Shell and BP ones tend to have xxx00 to xxx59 as Shell and xxx60 to xxx99 as BP - evidently their once-common fleet was split 60:40 - did this occur when the joint venture was demerged (1976 according to Wikipedia)?

PR, BRT, STS, TRL, RLS, LS were the main prefixes for leasing companies, whose tanks may or may not have been branded. 

 

 

 

Not "tend to" the split was as you described. The wagons never carried SMBP TOPS plates although they were manufactured - there were piles of them for sale at Collectors corner.I have SMBP 52119 - and happen to have photographed the same wagon http://PaulBartlett.zenfolio.com/sukobitumen/e136081de

 

Paul Bartlett

[gazmanjack]

Just cottoned on to this thread as I have just purchased two TEA tankers, both in Amoco livery. I would like to change the livery to Shell/BP (early 70s), Can someone please point me in the right direction for decals for these models in that era ??

 

Cheers, Gary.

[Glorious NSE]

Fox do assorted Shell and BP logos and wagon data, not sure whether any are correct for the 70s though?

[ess1uk]

where would the TEA tanks i saw heading through Aldershot be heading?