Nostalgia & History > Early Oil Tanker

http://saltofamerica.com/contents/displayArticle.aspx?19_209

The following excerpt is from the above website.

“As the valleys of Oil Creek and other tributaries of the Allegheny River produced more and more oil, a region which had once been a wilderness was transformed into a scene of extraordinary activity. Thousands of teamsters were employed to haul tens of thousands of barrels of oil to the nearest railroad shipping points, and other thousands of barrels were shipped by water in every conceivable sort of craft.

The inventive ability of the pioneer American asserted itself on every hand. Old lumber pilots, long retired for lack of something to do, were routed out to guide rafts of oil on the river. Even abandoned lumber dams found a new use. Oil Creek carried little water, and was navigable only in a flood. The old lumber dams were pressed into a service of which no one had ever dreamed. By their means the water was collected and retained to produce artificial floods once or twice a week.

At the appointed time, the dams were opened, one after another, until the little stream had increased to a river. At each landing the stream received its tribute of oil-laden boats, until, after a journey of fifteen miles, the fleet often numbered 500 or 600 boats carrying 20,000 to 25,000, and possibly 40,000 barrels of oil. There was much maneuvering and many a collision as this oil flotilla swept out into the Allegheny from Oil Creek. Later, railroads were built into the oil regions, but for years it was a question whether the oil wells would not dry up and leave the railroads with nothing to transport. At first oil was shipped in barrels, but later tank-cars came into use, and then pipe lines.

There are to-day, some 138,000 oil tank-cars, enough to store all the oil which was produced in the United States in 1880. The first tank-car was crude enough. About five years after Drake’s well had struck oil, Charles P. Hatch proceeded to Oil Creek in order to secure oil for his employers, the Empire Transportation Company. Oil was then shipped over the railroads in barrels. Hatch either conceived the idea of a tank-car, or else saw some kind of a tank-car in use. At his request, the company sent him a box-car within which had been built three wooden tanks, according to his plans. He was instructed to use the car with care; for the company was skeptical, and expected to use the car again for ordinary freight.

The tanks leaked frightfully. In order to caulk and make them oil-tight, Hatch had to tear off the sides of the car. “Return the car to the merchandise trade indeed!“ he exclaimed, as the car was finally filled with oil and sent forward on its trip East. The car looked as if it had been subjected to a cannonading. It was ruined except for use as an oil car. And an oil car it remained, as many of its brothers and fellows have since. Within a few years long lines of tank-cars had taken the place of the barrels formerly seen along the railroad sidings. Indeed, there is now no such thing as an oil barrel, a “barrel” being now simply a measure of oil. The wooden tank-car was subjected to such strain and leaked so badly that within a few years iron tubular tank-cars, not greatly different from the present-day steel car, took its place.”

Picture 1, “Wooden oil tank train car.”

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For a Zoomit enlargement click on http://zoom.it/A3du#full . Continue to click on the + button in the lower right of the picture until the enlarging stops. Use the cursor and the left mouse button to move the picture.

Thank you flynn for the post. Some amazing comments/observations on the original oil trains and the ingenuity of the Americans back in the day ... some how I doubt the EPA or OSHA or the Corps of Engineers or FEMA to name just a few agencies/bureaucracies, would let that happen today. Thanks for sharing the history and the links.

Odyssey
Evergreen, CO

The Densmore brothers designed and built these first tank cars. They had a Us patent for the 2-tub car but never did anything to protect their rights under the patent laws and essentially walked away from the industry.

Shortly afterwards, one of the Densmore brothers partnered with a man named Scholes who ... Invented the QWERTY keyboard typewriter.

It looks as though they also functioned as flange lubricators.
...Lorenzo