What to do with my Tank Wagons?

[sb67]

I've got these three tank wagons on my bench, I bought them a good few years ago and I wonder if anybody could give me any ideas on what I could do with them?

I don't know anything about the liveries or era they are suitable for. Is the livery fictitious, will they need re painting and would these wagons have been around in the 70's are the sort of questions I'm asking.

 

Many thanks in advance.

Steve.

[Dunsignalling]

The liveries are authentic, but represent styles applied up to the early fifties, at the latest, that would probably have disappeared through either repainting or scrapping around a decade later.

 

Older tanks of generally similar design to these lasted well into the 1960s, certainly in the Shell-BP fleet, which was something of a living museum back then. Seventies is a bit of a stretch, though some would have been sold on to smaller operators and might have survived that long, albeit repainted - see internet for photos. Esso had been actively re-equipping with 35-ton vacuum fitted tank wagons from the mid-1950s onward.

 

However, whilst being better than most other r-t-r tank wagons of 1980s origin, those Bachmann models are somewhat generic in that they combine features from various designs rather than being fully correct for any particular type.

 

If I wanted some "older" tank wagons operated by one of the larger oil companies for a 1970s layout, I'd be inclined to trade these in for some Heljan 35-tonners.

 

John

Edited March 14, 2019 by Dunsignalling

[Mick Bonwick]

1 hour ago, sb67 said:

I've got these three tank wagons on my bench, I bought them a good few years ago and I wonder if anybody could give me any ideas on what I could do with them?

 

 

E-bay. 

 

You'd be hard pushed to find photographic evidence of these existing in revenue service in the '70s.

[BlackRat]

Spray them black, there's plenty of after market transfers that you can apply for departmental tanks, waste oil, water etc.

[Fat Controller]

My local steelworks (Duport, Llanelli), was still receiving heavy fuel-oil in the black--painted variation of these tanks into the early 1970s; when the tanks became redundant, Duport bought them for their scrap value, sliced the top half of the barrels off, and got a further decade of use as scrap-carriers out of them.

[eastwestdivide]

See also this thread:

with an ancient tank surviving next to the ECML at Doncaster into the 2010s. 

[Steamport Southport]

There was still loads of these about in the 1970s although not necessarily in those liveries. Have a look on Paul Bartlett's website.

 

https://paulbartlett.zenfolio.com/pounbraked

 

There have been a few threads recently on this very question. About whether they were authentic or not. Try the UK Prototype Questions part of the forum.

 

 

Jason

[hmrspaul]

5 hours ago, eastwestdivide said:

See also this thread:

with an ancient tank surviving next to the ECML at Doncaster into the 2010s. 

 

this was a good example. SMBP4112 taken into internal use and used for storage of hydraulic fluid used for the wagon retarders at Tinsley https://PaulBartlett.zenfolio.com/smbptank/e2fb26577

and then it was moved to Doncaster to collect sewerage from a rail locked in building

 

An alternative is to use the tanks as scenery https://paulbartlett.zenfolio.com/tankwagongrounded

 

Paul Bartlett

https://paulbartlett.zenfolio.com/pounbraked

[sb67]

Thanks for all the advice guys, there's some great photo's on the Paul Bartlett site. That's given me some stuff to look at. Seems like unless I sell them the easiest option would be to paint them black, although I was flicking through my Art of Weathering book just now and lo and behold there's a pic of what looks like the silver Esso tank taken in 1952 so I could weather that and just run it with some steam stock. 

Steve.

 

[TheSignalEngineer]

One of my pocket books used for jottings of useful liveries when going through books at the library or surfing the net has a note 'Freight Meldon 1961 ..... Tank, large ESSO lettering, Tank Shell BP, 7 plank, LMS Brake, BR/LMS vans, conflats, 5-planks, Tank uid 20T , ,... ,,,,,,,,..........' so it looks as if they were long lived in something akin to that Bachmann livery on the right of the original picture.

[TheSignalEngineer]

Unfortunately this is undated but as it is steam hauled and in a hilly area I would guess late 1950s or early 1960s. 

 

https://www.ssplprints.com/image/122101/train-of-esso-tank-wagons-and-mixed-freight

 

The two wagons in front of the silver ones look like 22T Class B Esso wagons which were built 1957-59 IIRC

[hmrspaul]

8 hours ago, TheSignalEngineer said:

Unfortunately this is undated but as it is steam hauled and in a hilly area I would guess late 1950s or early 1960s. 

 

https://www.ssplprints.com/image/122101/train-of-esso-tank-wagons-and-mixed-freight

 

The two wagons in front of the silver ones look like 22T Class B Esso wagons which were built 1957-59 IIRC

Although ESSO led the other companies on vacuum braking their fleet this didn't begin for the Class As until 1959 so there were no alternatives to the much earlier ones as being discussed. Class As were less common than the black class Bs but were important and plenty existed. As mentioned before, there are books on this subject.

 

Paul