Eastern Railroad Discussion > GLNX Tank cars

Have the railroads stopped using the GLNX 8 wheeled tank cars? I remember seeing them up until about 8 - 10 years ago. They were very commonplace at Paulsboro, NJ and out of Morrisville, PA on Conrail's MO-PI. They were almost always placarded 1075 for propane. They had and articulated 4 axle truck on each end of the car and were very curious looking. The waybills always showed them with a gross tonnage of 140-160 tons loaded. Have they been fazed out like the TTOX 2 axle cars and the friction bearing or have they been pooled in other service away from the Northeast.

I was hoping you'd get some other replies because I wanted to know too and I do not have a very good response.

The latest Official Railway Equipment Register I have is Oct 2001 and it shows GLNX having no tank cars over 263,000 GWR (a Typical 4 axle 100 ton car). But the RER us virtually useless when it comes to identifying tank cars.

I remember the cars from Paulsboro that had six axles and eight axles being MOBX or MBLX marks for Mobil oil. Of course that is Exxon Mobil now. I checked there too and found none that were obviously larger than normal. I think these big cars haul lube oil. That Mobil refinery at Paulsboro is now Valero, one of two they have on the East Coast that can refine Venezuelan 'sour' crude.

Dupont still had eight axle cars as of last spring when I saw some in Folkston. Some big cars show in there RER listing but since I cant raed the car numbers from the video I cant tell if they are the same one I saw.

If you like eight axle tankers check Russian websites and videos. RZD employs eight or nine thousand of them in crude oil service.

Your question is a good one. Unfortunastely the lack of responses reflects the sad fact that 95% of railbuffs care only about engines. Sort of like looking at a nude and just staring in her eyes if you ask me.

The large tankcars are no longer allowed by the FRA, so no more can be built. Existing cars can run until their time expires. So they are a diminshing quantity.

November's Trains has a question about Dupont's in the Ask Trains section. It seems as there were 65 still in use at the end of 2004. I'm assuming they are speaking of the Dupont fleet.