Nostalgia & History > CSX Benzyne train on the old B&O, June 1987

June, 1987
A CSX westbound Benzyne tank train is rolling across the diamond in Vincennes, IN. This is on the former B&O mainline from Cincinnati to St Louis and is crossing the former C&EI from Chicago to Evansville. The depot was right behind me and all of the B&O operators were friendly to us. After filming the train we would go back in and shoot the breeze with the operator. The good old days. CSX was almost one year old and in a few short years the operators would be gone.

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Very cool catch.
JB

Wow, those are the GATX Tank Train cars, similar to the West Coast Oil Cans train over Tehachipi and later on the SP Coast Line. Don't know the details but the contracts changed every so often so whether these are the same cars or not I don't know. The design 'feature' was the interconnecting hose which allowed one outlet from a string of cars  using pressured Nirtogen (?) to push the oil from the farthest car to the oulet, which greatly reduced unloading time.

Curious what the details on the train in the Video are. How many years did the train run, for example. I noticed the interconnecting hose is not in place between the cars but the supporting brackets and arms are present. Interesting to see this.

t4p.

TCnR Wrote:
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> Curious what the details on the train in the Video
> are. How many years did the train run, for
> example. I noticed the interconnecting hose is not
> in place between the cars but the supporting
> brackets and arms are present. Interesting to see
> this.
>
> t4p.
I wish I could say but I really don't know other than it was unloaded in St Louis or so I was told. Back then we were just catching trains for our own fun and really didn't get into the operational information until later.

The cars appear to be connected in 12 car sets. The hose diameter is smaller than the Oil Cans' hoses.

It looks like the cars were in the 17000 series. I don't recall seeing those on the Oil Cans.

Very interesting video. Now I can run the oil can tank cars on my B&O model RR and know it's close to the real thing.
Thank you for posting.
Joe