Model Railroading > Halliburton pneumatic cars from Rapido

Evan had a nice post the other day on the Nostalgia board about the Buttonwillow branch. It reminded me that Rapido just announced models of the Halliburton car that I saw as a kid at the silos just west of I-5 at the Buttonwillow exit. That was the exit from I-5 that my dad took to go see his parents. So my memories are the train tracks (but not very many trains), those unique Halliburton cars, and playing at the outdoor McDonald’s play place with my sisters once in a while.

Might have grab a car just for the memories.

Nathan

https://rapidotrains.com/ho-scale/freight-car/halliburton-pneumatic-railcar.html

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Those are some unusual cars. I never saw one on the Buttonwillow Branch or anywhere else, but yeah, I can't pass on one of those, either.

- EO

There's an extensive discussion on the Atlas Rescue Forum and the MFCL on these cars, more specifically where they went. The cars were used for various recipes of drilling mud used in Oil drilling, or Natural Gas drilling or what ever kind of hole in the ground is funded for that day. The collective audience has memories of this car type on just about every piece of rail from somewhere in Mexico to Alaska, on at least one day in history.

It's worth digging around the Internet to sort it out.

+ For me? Nope. Presently hoarding 50 ft boxcars



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/06/25 10:30 by TCnR.

On the Rio Grande io.groups, there was a photo of one of these Halliburton cars in Pueblo CO.  Hmmm

Jim Fitch

Used to pass through Cheyenne, WY a lot on the C&S, were very common in the 1970's and 1980's and I remember 3 parked at some kind of unloading rack at Casper, WY on the C&S/BN in the 1990's. Also recall some passing through Gillette, WY circa 1979. === === = === JLH

              The information mentioned they carried cement, flyash and pozzalyn for the 'drilling OF mud'.  Messed up the explanation there somehow. deffinetly not for drilling OF mud. Properly they could carry bentonite out of Bell Fourche, SD which is a very basic ingredient when mixing drillling mud.

               I think we had 6 to 8 of these cars assigned to Hugoton, Ks Halliburton carrying cement primarily, some flyash and one on a bentonite haul. Flyash and bentonite would unload 75 tons in 45 minutes or less as the grind was very fine. Cement was a bit couarser and would unload in an hour +.  Not uncommon if coupling numerous of these together to have to add 9 or 10 inch dummy air hose so they would not have a pull apart because of the FreightMaster underframe.  



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/06/25 10:12 by dcfbalcoS1.

I saw these cars often on the CNW in KC, I cannot remember who they got transferred to. Didn't the CNW serve Bentonite areas? KCRW287

https://oilandgasoverview.com/what-is-drilling-mud-and-how-it-is-used/

Cement is used for cementing the surface and production casing pipe into the ground after the surface hole and then the hole to total depth are drilled.  Drilling mud is used to lubricate the drill bits during that process. Halliburton's primary pressure pumping business is doing the cementing. IMCO Services is/was the drilling mud subsidiry of Halliburton. 


TCnR Wrote:
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> https://oilandgasoverview.com/what-is-drilling-mud
> -and-how-it-is-used/

I remember seeing these along various lines during my travels. The last one that I saw was this one, HWCX 111, on an eastbound BNSF manifest in the Tehachapi's on March 15, 2009 while returning from a Winterail trip. Definitely unique pieces of rolling stock and great that Rapido is doing them in HO for everyone. 

KC

---

Barite is the primary ingredient in drilling mud. It is mined all over northern Nevada and there are processing plants in 
several locations along the old SP and WP main lines. There are two large plants in and near Battle Mountain. The Barite
or finished drilling mud is very commonly loaded in the PD3000 hopper cars. Also as a bagged commodity, like Cement,
into boxcars. Those Dresser Magobar boxcars hauled the stuff along with Bentonite clay, Baker Hughes hoppers hauled muds
Pozzolan Rock more came out of the far north eastern part of California and NW Nevada.
The Halliburton cars hauled all the different things mentioned and could be found on remote spurs all over the country. Any
place that oil and gas drilling was happening. Looking at old SPINS and CLIC books you find little Halliburton,Baker Hughes
Schlumburger and other oilfileld svs companies everywhere. And these cars could should up on team tracks too as the 
point of the cars was to be self contained, self service for transfer to drilling service trucks. So from Cali. to OK to Texas
and Wyoming,Utah or PA and of course Alaska, via Seattle car ferries you could find these cars.
So kewl,Getting me a six pack, Just like the helium cars. YeHawww/

From the Rapido webpage on the model:

" In 1961, the Halliburton Company teamed up with the Pullman-Standard to create a pneumatic covered hopper car. Many know this car by its moniker of 'Halliburton Cement Car' but the products it carries goes beyond just cement. This car was specifically designed to haul dry bulk materials such as cement, pozzolan and fly ash, all critical to oilfield operations for the drilling of mud...."

I remember from the Southern Railway traveling innovative freight car display in the early 1960s, it included a similar car for Southern that had, if I recall correctly, two pods. I don't think that Southern reproduced it other than the initial car or two. I distinctly remember that the show visited my town in October 1962 because the day I saw it was when the news about the Cuban Missile Crisis hit the news big time.

My question is who came up with the design? Southern Railway, Pullman Standard, Halliburton, or someone else?

ts1457 Wrote:
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> My question is who came up with the design?
> Southern Railway, Pullman Standard, Halliburton,
> or someone else?

I believe the concept originated in Germany: the type Ucs 908 2-bin "silowagon" originated in the 1950s.

Ray  

Ray_Murphy Wrote:
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> I believe the concept originated in Germany: the
> type Ucs 908 2-bin "silowagon" originated in the
> 1950s.

Appreciate it!. That's interesting. I did not think to look abroad.