Model Railroading > Prototype photos of CP rail - Bakken oil train

So I want to eventually model a Bakken oil train on my modern day Milwaukee Road, which would have a terminal at New England, ND.

New England, ND just happens to be at the end of a former Milwaukee Road line about 24 miles away from the real Bakken Oil Express
facility on the BNSF that loads several trains a day.

With that in mind I have been attempting to catch one of CP Rails Bakken trains which originate in New Town, ND and go to Irving Oil
in St. Johns, New Brunswick, Canada. (New Town is almost due north of both New England & Dickinson the fictional Milw & real BNSF facilities)

Well yesterday was my lucky day after a meeting, I was able to catch CP train #606 running thru Detroit. MI about to head up to the tunnel and over to
Windsor, Ontario Canada. This train comes off the old SOO Line to Norfolk Southern to CP Rail to Montreal Maine & Atlantic.

So with that said I found the train interesting as it had a mix of several different cars and owners. While I think Athearn's ethanol tank car is
my best bet with the difference in cars I'm thinking that I would need to scratch some to mix in the look of the real train.

For anyone else looking to model one of these trains I will upload some pics to show what a typical train looks like.

Starting out the power

CP Rail #8793 class: DRF-44 (ES44AC ie: GEVO) CP Paint; delivered in 2006
CP Rail #8628 class: DRF-44 (AC4400CW) Beaver Paint; delivered in 2001

While I did not get a photo of it the spacer car was a Dakota Minnesota & Eastern PS 50' Waffle Box Car #5446. I think this is the car Exactrail did recently.

Kris

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Next up the tanks themselves;

39 year old - ACFX #87289 Blt 9-74 - 30,160 Gallons
5 month old - CBTX #742574 Blt 1-13 by ARI @ St Charles, MO - 31,810 Gallons (About 15-20% of the train was made of these, note the end protection plates called half head-shields by ARI.)

Kris

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ARI half head-shields on one of the CBTX cars. I have not seen these on any HO Scale freight cars yet.

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A few of the TILX cars and a shot of their end plate which is a little different than the ARI one.

TILX #350614 Blt 10-12 - 31,700 Gallons



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/15/13 19:37 by dcmkris.

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Another couple of the TILX cars, was interesting to note the difference in the amount of gallons each can hold.

TILX #194935 Blt 5-07 - 30,100 Gallons
TILX #350562 Blt 9-12 - 32,100 Gallons

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Now one of the Procor cars and a UTLX car. The UTLX car is not the typical roster of one but I thought it shows the difference in cars pretty well.

Procor - PROX #44996 - 30,100 Gallons
UTLX #210460 - 30,100 Gallons

That's it for now hopefully I will get to photograph another one of these guys and then I can concentrate on getting better pics of some of the cars.

Hope this comes in handy for some of you.

Kris

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Kris

One thing I have noticed on the BNSF / NS trains is tat they run with 50' Airslides as the spacer car. IIRC they are at least partially loaded with sand for blast mitigation.

Regards,
Russ Goodwin
buford, GA

Russ,

You know that's one thing that I've always wondered. I guess next time I will have to look at the boxcar springs to see if has any kind of load on it.

Kris

Great pics and coverage, thanks , Ed

If anyone is interested I caught another one of these oil trains today with different power (Well OK different road numbers) and some different tank cars. I can post the PIC's to this thread or start another thread with them if there is interest.

Kris