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Category: Freight Projects
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Tank Car Data Upgrade

Published in the December 2011 email newsletter, with updated material in 2012.

Recently I was working on a few Walthers 16,000 Gallon Funnel Flow tank cars, decorated for Procor-Sulphur, blue with UTLX reporting marks. These tanks cars are numbered randomly in the UTLX roster. After a considerable amount of searching, I came across a few, though not the same numbers Walthers used on the 3 cars I have.


Prototypes:
UTLX 66373: http://www.railcarphotos.com/PhotoDetails.php?PhotoID=23413
UTLX 71651: http://www.railcarphotos.com/PhotoDetails.php?PhotoID=6926

I noticed that both cars had the emergency call placards, and the more recent photo of #66373 showed the new tank car testing placard. Though very hard to see, but present was the appearance of reporting marks on the top of the car, required on tank cars now.

I set to work, updating the data on my cars. To begin, add the emergency placard, from Microscale set 87-1236. Look closely, as there are placards in French on the sheet as well, I used the English, 800 number version.

I then added the top reporting marks, using Microscale 87-1320, stencil lettering. The last decals, the testing data placards, come from Highball Graphics, #F-163. I used the white version, but the sheet also includes black, which I used on an Atlas ACFX Kaolin tank car I'm working on at the same time.

New placards highlighted with red circles on the left hand car, #76976.

Once again on the left, circles in red, the new numbers.

For the Atlas ACFX Kaolin tank car, I had to do much more work. The car I started with was decorated for Thele Kaolin, white with a black bottom. I used the time honored practice of using a small bit of sand paper, in my case a sanding stick, to sand off the reporting marks, road numbers, and Thele logos.

After removing the logos, I masked the white portion of the car and repainted the bottom with Testors Dark Blue. I then re-decaled the car to ACFX #78954. There are several cars in the 789xx series with white bodies and dark blue bottoms, that match the Atlas car's design.

I used Microscale #90102, black railroad Gothic letters & numbers to re-do the reporting marks, and the black testing data from the Highball set. These cars did not require the hazardous call placard, as the products carries are not hazardous.

In production photo next shows the new reporting marks, and testing placard. I've also added a COTS decal from a Microscale sheet.

In the future I'll also be doing a few short videos and articles about how I'm weathering these tank cars, and adding new etched walkways to the Walthers cars.

Atlas Kaolin tank with new reporting marks, and tank car testing data placard. The old reporting marks were
removed with a sanding stick.

© 2011, 2019, Josh Baakko, https://www.modelrailroadtips.com