Greasy Dark Dirty Drips on Fuel Tank Wagons.......Incorrect?

[M.I.B]

A bit of a modelling "set piece" -like the bus on the bridge, and the wedding at the church:    the weathered fuel tanker with dark greasy dirty over fill dribbled coming out of the top hatch.  However in most cases it is likely to be wrong.  But do we just accept it as being the norm now?

 

A few words/conversation starters to debunk/discuss this myth, and hopefully help people with their correct weathering/detailing.

 

First a simplified explanation of fuel types:

 

"Petrol" from the longer "petroleum" originated from the latin words for "rock oil", can be simplified into 5 of the most common fuel types we would expect to see being rail hauled.  Petroleum or petrol covers everything from Methane to heavy tar.

 

LPG,(liquified Petroleum Gas) , ethane, methane, propane, etc-usually liquified for carriage in thick walled pressure tanks, and only in the diesel era.

 

Gasoline - commonly called "petrol" in the UK - a very volatile and light product which evapourates quickly even in cold old UK.  Had been shipped in tank wagons on railways since the year dot.  Most aircraft ran on gasolinesinto the 1960s, and even small sporting planes used gasolines from then on.

 

Kerosenes - Paraffins and aviation fuel for jet/turbine engines - thicker, slightly greasier products which tend to "hand around" as a liquid for much longer than gasolines.

 

Gas oil - diesels and heating oils - les common prior to the 1960s, and then increasing in useage and popularity - the exception being marine diesel/bunker oils which are used in such large volumes that they tend to be delivered by shipping tankers and lighters.  Diesel is very greasy, dirty and certainly hangs areound for a long time.

 

Bitumins and tars- still strictly "petroleum" but shipped in specialised wagons - tend to solidify very quickly. Steam heating for tanks needed to keep liquid and to aid unload/load..  Some never quite "set" and tend to be very messy.

 

 

 

What does this all mean?

 

The "set piece" short oil tanker on the steam layout with dark greasy dribbles running down from the top-hatch is rarely correct:

 

In the steam era, the majority of fuel in tankers will be gasoline which evapourates very quickly and hence has little chance to mingle with dirt to form the typical greasy dribble.  It is more likely that any spill of fuel in the steam era would produce a cleaner patch around the area of the dribble/over fill.

 

In the early diesel/late steam era, the prevelance of diesel for some trucks improved, it certainly wasn't available on garage forecourts for cars, but is obviously available for rail depots.  Kerosenes became more common in bulk in the 60s when turbo prop and jet aircraft became more common. The exception was obviously the Paraffin tanker which was common in small numbers from the 20s onwards and faded away in the late 60s as people used gas or oil in their homes.    So the chances of seeing the big black greasy dribble improves on this sort of traffic because diesel and kerosene spills would have lingered and attracted grot to stick to it.

 

LPG tankers are always clean in terms of product & dirt - they only get as dirty as carriage stock.

 

Bitumen and tar carriers will be absolutely filthy.unlessthey are ex-works.

 

Modern image fuel tankers for diesel, heavy fuel oil ( heating oil)and aviation kerosenes - most will have been "bottom filled" so dribbles out of the top are very very rare, and nowadaysalmost non existant because the fill  is computer controlled - only the right amount goes in.  No attendant with a stopcock to turn off if he isn't other wise distracted.  If there is going to be any "grunge" it is likely to be like a diesel engine - around fill caps and definitely below the solebar.

 

 

Hope this has pointed you in a more correct direction before weathering your stock.  Or opened up an informative debate.

 

[eastwestdivide]

When you say "modern image", what sort of years are you talking about? My oil products tanker photos from the 80s show more with dark greasy dribbles than without.

 

And just for more debate, there are some grubby Long Rock Penzance fuel TTAs from 2010 in this post

 

For a "reverse" example, the blue bogie VTG tanks on the Humber-Kingsbury fuel train this summer seem to have a clean bit of spillage cutting through the grot on the upper half of the blue tank:

[M.I.B]

My money says that they are all diesels and kerosenes - clean and shiney spills - surprised to see top- spillage.tho.

 

But like I said - the "spill" shows clean through any grot because it has acted like a solvent - hence why I think those may be kerosene (aviation fuel)

 

Definitely not a broad line of traditional modellers' greasy black though!

[eastwestdivide]

So what's our cutoff point for a broad line of greasy black? Here's some from 1985:

[The Bigbee Line]

I was at LOR Lindsey Oil Refinery in 2007 and top fill was the norm. Also a lot of "wet" tanks seem. Will post some pictures.

[The Bigbee Line]

A few images from the vaults:

June 2005 at Barnetby

 

Two tanks in the same shunt from LOR, one with a spill and one without:

 

 

Finally a series of pictures showing all the wagons forming the "Bedworth Tanks" passing Toton in 2001 (Date from metadata so could be corrected)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[lapford34102]

Nice pictures Gents, very useful for future reference.

M.I.B. while I agree with the general argument that weathering should really be as accurate as you can do in practice life is different. Weathering is literally an art and there's a whole spectrum of skills out there. That's compounded by the fact that people often weather to what they think they see, or copy another model, rather than look at what's actually there,  a mistake I've certainly made. The old adage "get a photo" holds very true.

Your info is very useful but I've a suspicion you're preaching to the converted as anyone doing an accurate aviation fuel tanker has probably already dug round for some real pics. At the other end of the scale the modeller running a filthy grey TTA on their GW branch is equally likely to be quite happy even if they know it's not right.

Weathering is a bit of a can of worms and anything that moves the subject forward I'm in favour of. There's a huge amount of really excellent weathering around but you've only got to look at some of the horrors such as appear on e-bay to see we have a way to go on this.

Off my soapbox now :-)

 

Stu

 

My attempt at tank weathering.............................................!

 

[hmrspaul]

Plenty of inspiration http://paulbartlett.zenfolio.com/fueltankwagons    http://paulbartlett.zenfolio.com/ferrytank

 

 

Paul

[M.I.B]

Nice pictures Gents, very useful for future reference.

M.I.B. while I agree with the general argument that weathering should really be as accurate as you can do in practice life is different. Weathering is literally an art and there's a whole spectrum of skills out there. That's compounded by the fact that people often weather to what they think they see, or copy another model, rather than look at what's actually there,  a mistake I've certainly made. The old adage "get a photo" holds very true.

Your info is very useful but I've a suspicion you're preaching to the converted as anyone doing an accurate aviation fuel tanker has probably already dug round for some real pics. At the other end of the scale the modeller running a filthy grey TTA on their GW branch is equally likely to be quite happy even if they know it's not right.

Weathering is a bit of a can of worms and anything that moves the subject forward I'm in favour of. There's a huge amount of really excellent weathering around but you've only got to look at some of the horrors such as appear on e-bay to see we have a way to go on this.

Off my soapbox now :-)

 

Stu

 

My attempt at tank weathering.............................................!

 

  Like the finish on these.

 

You are entitled to stand on your soapbox, and I agree whole heartedly about the Ebay horrors.

 

Was hoping to see someone de-bunking my thoughts on steam era fuel tankers.

[newbryford]

 

 

Bitumen and tar carriers will be absolutely filthy.unlessthey are ex-works.

 

Modern image fuel tankers for diesel, heavy fuel oil ( heating oil)and aviation kerosenes - most will have been "bottom filled" so dribbles out of the top are very very rare, and nowadaysalmost non existant because the fill  is computer controlled - only the right amount goes in.  No attendant with a stopcock to turn off if he isn't other wise distracted.  If there is going to be any "grunge" it is likely to be like a diesel engine - around fill caps and definitely below the solebar.

 

 

 

Diesel fuel TTA's must still be top filled going by this pic taken a couple of years ago. Just search flickr for 6B93 or 6B94 Eastleigh-Fawley

 

 

There is a refurbishment program in hand, but the newly painted tanks are starting to get dirty from the top.......

 

Plenty of TTA shots on the 60's thread. The first tank is ex-works, the third one back is recently refurbished as it carries the newer layout of TOPS and warning panels.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/76550945@N05/8229693727/in/photolist-dxekea-ee7bV3-f2H4BR-f2KHbv-fP28EJ-fPWBtK-f1dn8w-dSVZDP-epTPZy-bUdL7Y-eysQ43-ctbfnW-e3Dvq3-fajyHP-ehNphZ-fne8te-dxbwAp-ee85qE-ee8Uyh-dHgXQQ

 

And here's my take in model format

 

 

I have a few bitumen TEA's in the RMweb gallery http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/gallery/album/894-bitumen-teas/

 

Cheers,

Mick

[class"66"]

These are my 100 ton Crude oil tankers,with wet spil marks and rust added here n there...

[Glorious NSE]

Interesting thread - I think it does come back to 'work from a photo' - there's plenty of flows out there that show some marking on the side, but there are others that show very little. The weathering does seem to be much less overall than under BR days, maybe due to more environmental awareness, maybe due to changes in product composition (no lead in petrol etc?)?

TDA VTG86921 in aviation fuel service (2009), these tanks as the OP says don't seem to show spills much at all, in fact where there's been a spill you have a section of tank that's cleaner than the rest, not dirtier, like this!



TDA VTG78231 in general (Diesel/Gasoline) service (2013) - i've tried to pick an 'average' one of these, they certainly aren't all clean of spills, there are ones I have shots of that are much heavier weathered than this, but neither are they all filthy either - the weathering is maybe more complex than many folk assume, definately not a big splodge of black.

 

If you want my **guess** what happens with these tanks is that there are spills, and that gradually builds up to a dark colour, but if it then rains when that tank has spilled product on it then it has a cleaning effect. That results in the spills being worse on the bottom of the tank where the rain doesn't wash it clean.



From the same train as the above, TEA GERS89023 - this batch seem to stay cleaner (even of road dirt) - I suspect they get regularly cleaned as part of their maintainence contract? This one is fairly average in weathering, but seeing these GERS ones with no appreciable weathering (other than the paint's gradual fading) isn't rare.



TEA VTG88111 (2011) - a Petroplus wagon on empties out of Cardiff, uncleaned spills, apart from an almost shiny band around the middle, presumably where the lineside vegetation on some routes polishes the body!



Depot diesel fuel TTAs, ESSO56028 is the closest to the camera (2011) - Esso (or their wagon contractor) seem to have a policy of rolling 'refresh' painting as their wagons are maintained, so seeing bright shiny ones (see the 3rd in) is not rare, but after a while these all develop a big black streak. One interesting detail is the streak is usually bigger at the bottom - contents being blown at an angle as the wagon moves, or just the top being inherently cleaned again?



At various times depot fuel contracts change, at one point Eastleigh EWS was being served from Humberside in a rag-tag fleet of old TTA/TUA, this is TTA VTG58250 (2009) - I think this is a good example of what they ended up like when they don't have the occasional refresh that the Esso fleet gets. Again, this isn't a bad one, this is pretty representative!

Making a nice contrast to the Esso diesel fleet, ESSO61219 is a bitumen tank - just slapping some black paint on might not cut this, the mix of burnt off paint / shiny product / texture I think means you'd have to think about this to do it justice...
 

Even when you look at the real thing, sometimes it just makes no sense and ends up looking like a bad example from Ebay! - anyone want to take a punt at these two?

EWS870255 (2007)



EWS870312 (2007)



One thing on most of those - the normal road dirt is at least as much, if not more of a feature on the weathering on the majority of tanks...

 

(Edit to correct image links and text)

[Grimly Feendish]

M.I.B. Thanks for the interesting post. Do you know if crude is/was shipped by rail in the UK? I know it is in the US, but the US is a much bigger market than the UK.

 

John.

[M.I.B]

M.I.B. Thanks for the interesting post. Do you know if crude is/was shipped by rail in the UK? I know it is in the US, but the US is a much bigger market than the UK.

 

John.

All refineries in this country are adjacent to shipping crossload points. No need to haul crude.

[eastwestdivide]

M.I.B. Thanks for the interesting post. Do you know if crude is/was shipped by rail in the UK? I know it is in the US, but the US is a much bigger market than the UK.

 

John.

Crude was transported from some UK inland oilfields (Gainsborough certainly and possibly Dorset?)

also mentioned here:

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

[Rivercider]

M.I.B. Thanks for the interesting post. Do you know if crude is/was shipped by rail in the UK? I know it is in the US, but the US is a much bigger market than the UK.

 

John.

Holybourne near Alton (Hampshire) used to send 5 trains a week of 10 x 100 tonne tanks to Fawley,

the train ran each weekday evening with an discharged set from Fawley to Woking to reverse then down to Holybourne

where the set was berthed in the loading terminal and the loaded tanks worked back to Fawley,

 

cheers

[petethemole]

Crude from Wytch Farm in Purbeck went to Fawley by rail from the terminal at Furzebrook on the Swanage Railway until it switched to a pipeline in 1990.

[gwrman]

Hi, try looking here for various levels of oil streaking and weathering on TTA's also a good source for other wagons.

 

http://paulbartlett.zenfolio.com/standardtta/hb78afe5#hb78afe5

 

Nigel   8)

[rob D2]

" weathered to the finest standard to depict a grimy hard working tank"....

[class"66"]

Realy good information here guys....

[Fat Controller]

These are my 100 ton Crude oil tankers,with wet spil marks and rust added here n there...

I know Bachmann have been marketing these as 'Crude Oil' tanks, but they're actually Class B (fuel oil etc) tanks; Crude Oil is classed as a Class A product, due to the volatile components present, and so would be transported in light-coloured tanks. Does the flow from Holybourne still run?

Apart from all the relatively recent flows of rail-borne crude, there were some flows of a form of crude known as 'shale oil' from the area of Central Scotland around Bathgate from the early years of the 20th century onwards. I wonder if there'll be a revival if 'fracking' becomes widespread?

LPG tanks pre-date the demise of steam by a few years; the first, four-wheeled ones appeared in 1964/5. There was a photo on one of the Fotopic sites of a 57xx pannier shunting an ex-works one at Gloucester in 1965.

[class"66"]

Anymore photos of weatherd tankers??

[The Bigbee Line]

Anymore photos of weatherd tankers??

I have uploaded more images to Flickr eg TTA BPO63171 Dover Town Yard 1980s  http://www.flickr.com/photos/55938574@N03/10087192643/sizes/l/in/set-72157635987906225/

Most have some staining, except an EWS bogie tank when brand new  http://www.flickr.com/photos/55938574@N03/10167931213/in/set-72157636036572956

 

[The Bigbee Line]

Also a nice streaky tank = 18th July 2005 Doncaster Station TUA PR70063

[newbryford]

Going back to the OP - it looks like modern tanks without staining/dribbles are rare!

 

Cheers,

Mick