Model Railroading > Athearn's new Union Pacific tank cars?

Athearn just announced new "Roundhouse" tank cars including several painted in Union Pacific black with silver lettering. Does anyone know what service they are assigned to on the UP? MOW, Excursion or? Thanks!

RRBMail Wrote:
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> Athearn just announced new "Roundhouse" tank cars
> including several painted in Union Pacific black
> with silver lettering. Does anyone know what
> service they are assigned to on the UP? MOW,
> Excursion or? Thanks!

They aren't contemporary, but instead are older, steam or transition-era tank cars -- in the announcement video, Athearn referred to them as "older style" and "not modern in any stretch" and "indicative of something you may have seen in the past" -- which is a little vague, but hey. The announcement pdf calls them "chemical tank cars" -- again, a little vague -- and I was wondering whether they might be foobies, and was about to suggest that that might be the case (searches weren't turning up much) but then I found that Micro-Trains had released a model of a car in this (696xx) number series in N scale a couple of years back. Here's what Micro-Trains had to say in their product description: 

"This 39’ single dome tank car is black with white lettering and runs on Bettendorf trucks. Built in 1924 by American Car & Foundry, these 12,500 gallon capacity tank cars were reconditioned in Omaha and renumbered to the 69500 – 69740 series in 1955. They were used for everything from molasses to fuel oil." 

So there you have it -- assuming that info is correct, it seems like these rebuilt tank cars were used for all sorts of things. 

EDIT: I should note that the Micro-Trains car, while vaguely similar in the sense of also being an old black tank car in this number series that says UNION PACIFIC on the side, is quite a different design, so someone is fudging accuracy to put out product... I would guess that the Athearns are the not-so-accurate ones, but I don't know. 



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/01/21 13:35 by FiestaFoamer.

RRBMail Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Athearn just announced new "Roundhouse" tank cars
> including several painted in Union Pacific black
> with silver lettering. Does anyone know what
> service they are assigned to on the UP? MOW,
> Excursion or? Thanks!

These are the old Athearn "Blue Box" tank cars. The domes are not tall enough among other things. And there's been many articles about kitbashing these models into something a bit closer to the UP or SP prototypes.

Would any of these old tank cars be like the ones a lot of State yards and County yards had that sat up on concrete piers and they used them to hold aspfalt in them to be sprayed on blacktop roads and then put small rock on them then?  upkpfan



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/01/21 19:55 by upkpfan.

> Athearn just announced new "Roundhouse" tank cars
> including several painted in Union Pacific black
> with silver lettering. Does anyone know what
> service they are assigned to on the UP?

I looked at a bunch of old UP train lists and found only a few UP tank cars running around.  In all cases - at least in this sample from the 1950s & 60s - UP tank cars were hauling company fuel / diesel.  The most common tank cars moving on the Overland Route in those days were plain old GATX tanks, with a bunch of Sinclair tanks also showing up, but just a few UPs.  So if you're looking to represent UP's trains from the "classic era", you'll want to get a bunch of GATXs, a few Sinclairs and maybe a UP or two that would show up at your engine facility now & then.

I don't know when UP got rid of their fleet of black tanks, but it seems like it would have been right around the 1970s or so.  After that, they used private tanks (leasing companies, GATX, UTLX, etc) or had the fuel supplied by pipeline (such as at Denver, Rawlins, etc).

Take care,

Mark