Black Sheep Posted May 13, 2014 Share Posted May 13, 2014 I've recently been buying up some old 'trix tank wagons to add a bit of variety to my freight trains, however, after reading the guide to milk tank liveries in the most recent N gauge journal, I'm now wondering if the ones I've been buying are suited to my time period. I'm running LMS post war, just at the sunset of the big four (so 1947/1948 then) I know the type of tankers were being built between the 1900's and 1950's when bogie tankers started to emerge Shell / BP National Benzole Shell / BP This one looks like it should be older, but it's got no red markings to denote it as a glass A flammable goods… Fina If anyone can give rough dates on when the liveries are from I'd really appreciate it, I had convinced myself that the silver Shell/BP was 30's based on the shell logo but not so convinced now. Thanks Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
cctransuk Posted May 13, 2014 Share Posted May 13, 2014 I've recently been buying up some old 'trix tank wagons to add a bit of variety to my freight trains, however, after reading the guide to milk tank liveries in the most recent N gauge journal, I'm now wondering if the ones I've been buying are suited to my time period. I'm running LMS post war, just at the sunset of the big four (so 1947/1948 then) I know the type of tankers were being built between the 1900's and 1950's when bogie tankers started to emerge Shell / BP National Benzole Shell / BP This one looks like it should be older, but it's got no red markings to denote it as a glass A flammable goods… Fina If anyone can give rough dates on when the liveries are from I'd really appreciate it, I had convinced myself that the silver Shell/BP was 30's based on the shell logo but not so convinced now. Thanks AFAIAA, off the top of my head :- Shell / BP - late 1950s / early 60s National Benzole - not sure, late 1940s / early 1950s? Shell / BP - 1950s / 60s Fina - not too sure, pre-WW2? Regards, John Isherwood. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Butler Henderson Posted May 13, 2014 Share Posted May 13, 2014 The silver Shell BP livery is far more modern, a 1969 photo of a tank wagon so liveried appears in the Cheona Geoff Gamble Railways in Profile No 4 Railtanks Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Black Sheep Posted May 13, 2014 Author Share Posted May 13, 2014 The silver Shell BP livery is far more modern, a 1969 photo of a tank wagon so liveried appears in the Cheona Geoff Gamble Railways in Profile No 4 Railtanks hmm, I was worried this might be the case, however I was under the impression the 4 wheel tanks were being phased out as they weren't fitted and the larger bogie tanks were being introduced. How probable is it that it was included in the publication but was a livery existing from much earlier? Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Black Sheep Posted May 13, 2014 Author Share Posted May 13, 2014 http://www.shell.co.uk/gbr/aboutshell/who-we-are-tpkg/our-history/history-logo.html That kind of covers it agreeing completely with Butler Henderson's contribution Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Butler Henderson Posted May 14, 2014 Share Posted May 14, 2014 hmm, I was worried this might be the case, however I was under the impression the 4 wheel tanks were being phased out as they weren't fitted and the larger bogie tanks were being introduced.How probable is it that it was included in the publication but was a livery existing from much earlier? Bogie tank wagons were introduced from 1966, the Cheona book has a large number of old type 4 wheel tank wagons dated as being photographed in the period 1968-1970 which implies a cull then/thereafter of them, some do look abandoned but most including the Shell BP one appear to be in use. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fat Controller Posted May 14, 2014 Share Posted May 14, 2014 The tanks you're modelling were replaced, not by bogie tanks, but by 15' wheelbase vacuum-braked tanks, either of the pattern modelled by the Airfix/Dapol kit, or of the type modelled by Bachmann/ Hornby. Early examples of the latter were built vac-fitted, then converted, later ones were built with air-brakes, I believe. The unfitted Class A tanks were almost extinct by the mid-1960s; the Class B ones, like the black Shell-BP one, lasted until the end of the decade. They were used in later days for flows of fuel oil to power stations and steelworks; the ones that served our local steelworks ended up with the top half of the barrel cut off, and used as internal scrap carriers. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
hmrspaul Posted May 14, 2014 Share Posted May 14, 2014 AFAIAA, off the top of my head :- Shell / BP - late 1950s / early 60s National Benzole - not sure, late 1940s / early 1950s? Shell / BP - 1950s / 60s Fina - not too sure, pre-WW2? Regards, John Isherwood. Shell / BP - late 1950s / early 60s - This style may have been introduced in 1959 when SMBP trialled a number of new liveries. Before that they tended, for Class A's to have Shell on one side and BP on the other - in various ways. Agreed the 1959 is the 1955 Shell logo, so from 1961 for this one seems good. Shell / BP - 1950s / 60s Class B. I have remarkably few photos that show the stripes either side of the BP.There is a new anchor mount with this so, 1948. Also on 1937-8 wagons, but they have the BP in inverted commas. Painting the stripes out makes them almost timeless, in revenue use until late 1960s, hanging around as oil etc. storage until quite recently. National Benzole - not sure, late 1940s / early 1950s? Sorry disagree, I think this is the earliest NB livery from c1919. Tourret R. (2009) Petroleum rail tank wagons of Britain. 2nd edition 304pp. Tourret Publishing, Oxford, GB, ISBN 978 0 905878 09 6 has another similar PP3 in 1925. The book shows how much NB liveries varied down the years. NB was taken over by SMBP 1/1/1957 but the fleet maintained an independent existence. SMBP were slow to modernise their fleet, and were also the big tank wagon fleet on BR. Unfitted wagons of varying vintages were in use into the late 1960s. Fina - not too sure, pre-WW2? Tourret explains they didn't exist before 1948. This is the livery adopted for both new and 2nd hand wagons then. They didn't alter it much so the Monobloc vacuum brake tanks of 1959 had a similar livery. Paul Bartlett Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
runs as required Posted May 14, 2014 Share Posted May 14, 2014 AFAIK Shell Mex and BP Ltd existed as a joint marketing/distribution company in GB and N Ireland and in some colonies from about 1930 (the Great Depression) until 1976 when they divided their assets between the 2 parent companies. National Benzole (which was I believe the original shale oil, now back in a big controversial way) was a Shell-BP subsidary from after the Pool petrol years (1948) until the early 1960s when it was phased out. Liveries: I reckon it was only road tankers that had red tanks/green cabs with Shell on the tankside oneside and BP on the other. Anyone remember the little Dennis Aces - and the classic Scammell normal control heavy road tanker, big brother to the BR Scarab? Rail tankers were rather more spartan - the black looks familiar from earlier - though there were also bitumen rail tanks that used to be warmed at special plants before discharge. One such plant was by the Paradise bridge on Scotswood Road, Newcastle, operational till long after that leg of the N&C was closed. I had a Trix Twin set in the postwar 1940s. It had a black LMS 0-4-0 and a yellow shell tank waggon - that could not have been UK: mebbe Dutch at the nearest! Fina existed in the post war years. I recall going on a school visit to Stanlow Shell refinery in about 1954 and seeing Esso, Regent and Fina road and rail tank waggons being filled ready for distribution and they explained that the oil companies all bought from the nearest refinery. So much for that special Tiger in Your Tank! RaR Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fat Controller Posted May 14, 2014 Share Posted May 14, 2014 AFAIK Shell Mex and BP Ltd existed as a joint marketing/distribution company in GB and N Ireland and in some colonies from about 1930 (the Great Depression) until 1976 when they divided their assets between the 2 parent companies. National Benzole (which was I believe the original shale oil, now back in a big controversial way) was a Shell-BP subsidary from after the Pool petrol years (1948) until the early 1960s when it was phased out. Liveries: I reckon it was only road tankers that had red tanks/green cabs with Shell on the tankside oneside and BP on the other. Anyone remember the little Dennis Aces - and the classic Scammell normal control heavy road tanker, big brother to the BR Scarab? Rail tankers were rather more spartan - the black looks familiar from earlier - though there were also bitumen rail tanks that used to be warmed at special plants before discharge. One such plant was by the Paradise bridge on Scotswood Road, Newcastle, operational till long after that leg of the N&C was closed. I had a Trix Twin set in the postwar 1940s. It had a black LMS 0-4-0 and a yellow shell tank waggon - that could not have been UK: mebbe Dutch at the nearest! Fina existed in the post war years. I recall going on a school visit to Stanlow Shell refinery in about 1954 and seeing Esso, Regent and Fina road and rail tank waggons being filled ready for distribution and they explained that the oil companies all bought from the nearest refinery. So much for that special Tiger in Your Tank! RaR This preserved Highwayman is in yellow and white livery:- http://ccmv.aecsouthall.co.uk/p392609337/h28d723fe#h28d723fe As is this non-preserved one:- http://ccmv.aecsouthall.co.uk/p392609337/h2300ace1#h2300ace1 I couldn't find any photos of the red and green ones, though I do remember them; the tanks I remember were black ones for fuel oil, though. I wonder if the yellow rail tank, which several firms covered in model form, might have been for lubricating or other special-purpose oils? Fina was founded in the 1920s, Belgian-owned, and importing oil from Romania. I couldn't find any reference as to when it started UK operations, though they had expanded to the States pre-WW2. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Black Sheep Posted May 14, 2014 Author Share Posted May 14, 2014 So the shell BP in silver is too new, I'll trade those for some more NB ones Fina we'rd not 100% certain but feasible they were about? So in the 40s it would be common to find a mix of tankers in a train or as part of a mixed goods? Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
hmrspaul Posted May 14, 2014 Share Posted May 14, 2014 So the shell BP in silver is too new, I'll trade those for some more NB ones Fina we'rd not 100% certain but feasible they were about? So in the 40s it would be common to find a mix of tankers in a train or as part of a mixed goods? As I said, Fina is a new company in 1948 according to Tourret, and there is no reason to doubt him. Probably also possible to check on-line. The black SMBP were by far the most common tank wagon - they worked in numbers together but not usually in block trains. The way to make that wagon a more common type is simply to paint out the white line alongside the BP. Other tank wagons appear to work in very small numbers or singly. Yellow finish appears to have been restricted to lubricating oil. There would have been very few of these wagons - but they got themselves photographed as they were spectacular. Paul Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fat Controller Posted May 14, 2014 Share Posted May 14, 2014 Into the 1950s, most trains conveying fuel products would have left the refinery as block trains, but the majority would have travelled as part of mixed goods trains to their destination. Apart from those sites that had been operated by the Ministry of Supply, many terminals were simply transhipment points to road transport, without any storage facilities. I recollect one such, at Haverfordwest station, lasting into the 1960s. It wasn't until the advent of the vac-fitted Esso tankers (1957?) that the idea of block trains took hold- suddenly tank wagons were expensive bits of kit which needed to be used intensively to pay for their upkeep. They couldn't trundle around at 20 mph, then stop in yards for days on end; they had to be turned round quickly. Hence the oil majors developed large regional terminals (often using MoS sites), served by block trains. Some of the larger ones (such as Bromford Bridge) eventually had their inbound train services partially supplanted by pipelines, but then started sending product out by train. It's a very convoluted story, with some odd twists; the original 100t bogie tanks were being withdrawn after only 20 or so years in service, yet some of the 4-wheeled tanks they were meant to replace are still about, and approaching 50 years old. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold gwrrob Posted May 14, 2014 RMweb Gold Share Posted May 14, 2014 We were discussing this very topic on my layout thread last year.Mikkel of this parish unearthed this excellent website on tankers.Dates etc and very informative. http://www.igg.org.uk/gansg/12-linind/petrol.htm Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RonnieS Posted December 20, 2016 Share Posted December 20, 2016 Good Morning all. I have been given a couple of Hornby tank wagons "United Oil Importers Ltd Motor Spirit" I can't find anything on the prototype. Are these a fictitious livery? Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold TheSignalEngineer Posted December 20, 2016 RMweb Gold Share Posted December 20, 2016 Tourret's book on petroleum tank wagons shows three Class A tank wagons in United Oil Importers livery including two 20T cradle mounts similar to the Hornby wagon. I believe the livery was around from the late 1920s into the 1930s. Tourret mentions that they had a depot in Liverpool in 1938 but I can't find any other record of what happened to them. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RonnieS Posted December 20, 2016 Share Posted December 20, 2016 Tourret's book on petroleum tank wagons shows three Class A tank wagons in United Oil Importers livery including two 20T cradle mounts similar to the Hornby wagon. I believe the livery was around from the late 1920s into the 1930s. Tourret mentions that they had a depot in Liverpool in 1938 but I can't find any other record of what happened to them. Interesting. I have just been sent this. Ayway a relivery for 1960s! Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold TheSignalEngineer Posted December 20, 2016 RMweb Gold Share Posted December 20, 2016 The National Archives have some listings of sale of assets c1932 IIRC Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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