Hello all! While I was out door knocking for the election yesterday, I saw something that made me do a double take. It was this.







As you can see it's 1920 UTLX single-dome, riveted construction tank car. It's currently being to store cold fuel oil for the Story City city government's vehicles, per a brief discussion I had with a city worker. He also informed me that the city is looking to replace it at some point in the foreseeable future, though not immediately. Barring outside intervention, it will almost certainly be scrapped when this happens. Googling has turned up absolutely nothing about the old girl, so it seems her survival is unknown to the preservation community. Anyone know of a suitable home for her?

There is also this one at the Historic Village in Vicksburg, Michigan. Built 2-20.

Whoever acquires it is going to be short a few items, like an underframe, for instance. Really a shame, IRM used to have two complete underframes kicking about in the early seventies, made surplus when the tanks went underground in septic service. Those frames were cut up decades ago, but I'm sure the trucks and brake equipment survive.

In the tank in your photo, it's odd that the tank anchors (normally riveted to the bottom center of the tank) were removed without a trace. They must have cut the rivets then seal welded them to keep them from leaking.

On Edit:

Now I see them, cut off flanges just above the concrete foundation walls. Unusual that there was two separate anchors, more common was one central anchor as shows in the pic of the car at the "Historic Village". Then again, that's an AC&F car, while the fuel oil tank was built by General American.

OK, willing to play! The Hoosier Valley Railroad Museum has WCHX #1114 on its roster. The Walter C. Haffner Company car was donated to the museum by the Animal By-Products Company of New Carlisle, Indiana back in 1993. Built by American Car & Foundry in July of 1919.

Les

that would be a great display item for a museum like AOS showing how an old tank car was used after it left the road.

Can I play, Can I play??
Happen to store my passenger cars in a yard that has a few stored cars awaiting scrapping ... these tank cars are pretty cool ... being former AT&SF cars, I can just imagine them sitting at ABQ in one of Jack Delano's famous super chief photos.

The Monticello Railway Museum has a couple of these riveted single dome tank cars. I caught one of the cars in the Shops at MRM back in 2015. I thought I had heard that the cars were going to be restored to operation, but don't know if that is still the plan or not. I think both of the cars were built in the 1920's and acquired from a private company.

Les