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Tanker wagons 1976 and beyond


Ray Von

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Hello, is anyone aware of any contemporarily available N gauge tanker wagons that would suit my SR layout, particularly Thanet, Ashford and Canterbury locality - which I think I'm right in saying would involve a lot of oil tankers? Farish do a few but I'm finding it hard to get the era right. 1976 - 81 (ish) thanks all.

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Hello, is anyone aware of any contemporarily available N gauge tanker wagons that would suit my SR layout, particularly Thanet, Ashford and Canterbury locality - which I think I'm right in saying would involve a lot of oil tankers? Farish do a few but I'm finding it hard to get the era right. 1976 - 81 (ish) thanks all.

I don't think there were that many services that used tank wagons in the immediate area you describe. There were (small) oil depots at Canterbury West and Dover (Bulwark St); the latter was BP, whilst the other was a distributor. Neither was served by particularly long trains; perhaps ten four-wheel tankers at most, of the TTA/TTB type. Apart from this, the only other regular tank traffic you might see would be single tanks, of a much older design, carrying de-icing fluid from 'Kilfrost' of Haltwhistle. Richborough power station might have had occasional trains of heavy fuel oil, but these would probably run straight down the Chatham main line from Hoo to Dover via Faversham.
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Thanks FC, fortunately I am quite keen on having some four wheeled tankers on my layout, so that's OK. These are the sort of thing in considering:

 

Does anyone know if they are appropriate for my late 70's layout? I particularly like the first Shell/BP tanker...

post-27013-0-25135400-1445862647_thumb.png

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Top left, a  bit too old I think. Although there were some like that in a siding at Grain into the 80s, they didn't get out on the main line.

Top right, OK, probably remove the ladders and replace with something thinner?

Bottom left for powders, don't think they ever got to Kent, worked out of the ICI places in the NW (Runcorn area?).

Bottom right for cement, not sure if they got to E Kent, and those 1xxxx-series straight ones are more 1980s. In the 70s you'd be seeing the "chevron" depressed centre ones.

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Thanks FC, fortunately I am quite keen on having some four wheeled tankers on my layout, so that's OK. These are the sort of thing in considering:

 

Does anyone know if they are appropriate for my late 70's layout? I particularly like the first Shell/BP tanker...

The first wagon is a type that stopped being used on main lines in the late 1960s.

The second are the sort you'd have seen around the area you're modelling.

The third is a powder tanker, used to distribute soda ash; not seen down here, I'm afraid

The last one is a cement tanker/hopper of a sort seen in the north of Kent, but not down this end.

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If your E Kent layout can justify trains of ferry wagons from Dover, the choice of tanks increases a fair bit, and you can have some very mixed formations - not just tanks, but other ferry vehicles and BR air-braked stuff too. There was a late morning Dover-Willesden (-Mossend?) via Canterbury & Chatham around that time, 47-hauled, which I regularly saw and photographed. 

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I could be wrong here, but I thought I'd read somewhere that the branding on the class-A tanks (e.g. Esso) was removed in the mid 70s?

There was certainly a period when all tank wagons on petroluem product flows (not just Class A ones)use to be pretty anonymous, with only the minimum of script to identify the owner/ operator in the case of an incident. Colourful schemes seemed to reappear in the early/mid 1990s, initially with Shell and BP tanks, IIRC.
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Cheers chaps, especially for the link NSE.

With regards to the other wagons etc, I am aiming to build a collection of as varied rolling stock as possible, to occupy what i envisage will be an exchange-siding adjacent to my main station. So, I don't see why I can't have a few ferry vehicles etc... :-)

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On the company branding of tanks, I've got photos of old/worn Shell and BP logos on tanks still in about 1981-2, although most had no logos/logos removed/painted over.

e.g. Hoo Junction, 1981 or 1982, showing painted out ones (big squares) on either side, but this one still with both Shell and BP despite the fact that their joint venture had been dissolved in 1976:

post-6971-0-36311200-1445887458.jpg

 

 

However, I've also got photos of newly-painted BP ones in 1983 with newly-applied logos:

e.g. Shildon open day 1983:

post-6971-0-15470700-1445887457.jpg

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Basic wagon type is OK, livery is a mid 90's one

 

Jon

What would make it mid-90s, to distinguish it from my 1983 shot above (2nd one in post 14)?

The lettering on the logo is slightly thinner and less of a serif on the model than in the photo, but that might be the limitations of the model, which also lacks a TOPS number panel.

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What would make it mid-90s, to distinguish it from my 1983 shot above (2nd one in post 14)?

The lettering on the logo is slightly thinner and less of a serif on the model than in the photo, but that might be the limitations of the model, which also lacks a TOPS number panel.

Its green not grey http://paulbartlett.zenfolio.com/bpo67560 .

 

Paul

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What would make it mid-90s, to distinguish it from my 1983 shot above (2nd one in post 14)?

The lettering on the logo is slightly thinner and less of a serif on the model than in the photo, but that might be the limitations of the model, which also lacks a TOPS number panel.

 

Its green not black, BP didn't (couldn't) paint its tanks green until the rules for painting class A tanks were relaxed 'about' 1990 - I'm sure if I looked long and hard enough in my Magazine 'archive' for the first press report then we could narrow it down further, but it's cold and dark where my magazines live.

 

Jon

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D'OH!

 

How about this?

 

Beware of the hazard warning plaque. The style shown looks a bit modern for 1976 to me. I'm happy to be corrected but I only remember signage in the style shown becoming universal in the 1980s. That's only based on my increasingly fuzzy memories of the era though.

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Here's a comparison. Thanks to Paul for this image:

 

Fair enough. I stand  corrected and may, indeed, end up using similar tank wagons for a similar era layout. I love the way RMWeb knows everything :D.

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