Oil Drums

[sjrixon]

I'm fascinated by Wagon loads and the whole freight movement, makes the movement of people look easy

 

Does anyone have an idea when oil drums would have started to appear on the railway? Lots of kits and line side accessories have them in, but I figure most would be post WW2? When fuel for cars and trucks became more widespread?

 

I've just made two of the Wills lamp huts, these come with oil drums. I guess lamps need oil, but would they come in metal drums around about 1935? The lamp huts are normally on platforms and you won't leave an oil drum next to one!

[rovex]

Apparently introduced around 1900, according to this website - http://aoghs.org/transportation/nellie-bly-oil-drum/

 

prior to that it would seem wooden ones were used with varying degrees of success - http://www.petroleumhistory.org/OilHistory/pages/Barrels/observations.html

 

although these refer to US practice I can't imagine the UK was any different

[Fat Controller]

I'm fascinated by Wagon loads and the whole freight movement, makes the movement of people look easy

 

Does anyone have an idea when oil drums would have started to appear on the railway? Lots of kits and line side accessories have them in, but I figure most would be post WW2? When fuel for cars and trucks became more widespread?

 

I've just made two of the Wills lamp huts, these come with oil drums. I guess lamps need oil, but would they come in metal drums around about 1935? The lamp huts are normally on platforms and you won't leave an oil drum next to one!

A patent was taken out on the design in 1905, apparently, but wide-spead use didn't come until WW2.

[sjrixon]

Did a little bit of a cross post over in pre-grouping as they have a cracking post on wagon loads.

 

http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/102186-what-can-be-used-as-pre-grouping-wagon-loads/page-4&do=findComment&comment=2816926

 

I think it's the same conclusion.. While they may have been about, post WWII would be more likely.. I think I'll leave them in a box, I've a couple of packs of ratio pallets that I picked up thinking they would look nice. Then I thought about it properly. 

[Fat Controller]

Did a little bit of a cross post over in pre-grouping as they have a cracking post on wagon loads.

 

http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/102186-what-can-be-used-as-pre-grouping-wagon-loads/page-4&do=findComment&comment=2816926

 

I think it's the same conclusion.. While they may have been about, post WWII would be more likely.. I think I'll leave them in a box, I've a couple of packs of ratio pallets that I picked up thinking they would look nice. Then I thought about it properly. 

Pallets are definitely post WW2 in the UK; they didn't become ubiquitous in civilian use until the 1960s.

[bécasse]

I have seen a photo reliably dated to 1929 which happens to show an oil drum abandoned out of use round the back of Boston Lodge works on the FR.

 

I have always assumed that they started to appear in the UK after WWI when there was a huge growth in the amount of motor traffic. Early motor vehicles tended to "drink" lubricating oil and I imagine that much of it was necessarily conveyed in steel oil drums. They may well have been used for tar as well - and tarmacadamed roads were also a new feature of post-WWI life.

[Andy Hayter]

Nothing new with lubricating oils in the 1920s.  Victorian machines had used them for more than half a century and they were delivered in wooden barrels if required in those volumes.  Even things like kerosene/paraffin were regularly supplied in wooden barrles until the arrival of the steel drum.   Indeed until the steel drum and later the pipeline, delivery of crude oil from the wellhead to the railhead was in a wooden tierce (42 US gallon barrel).

 

http://aoghs.org/transportation/history-of-the-42-gallon-oil-barrel/