Terra Chemicals tankers

Does anyone recall ever seeing Terra Chemicals tank cars that generally traveled a section of perhaps a dozen cars, all connected by a flexible pipe near the top of the tanks? I used to see them in Iowa and Minnesota a dozen or more years ago, and always wondered what the purpose of the big pipe was, and why I don't see them anymore. Dave

Is it perhaps, a variant of the crude oil tanker trains? They're connected to each other by a large pipe, and can be loaded/unloaded as a unit from one end or the other.


TxBritt

Yeah, I saw them in Florida and Georgia. They represented the novel idea of having from 10 to 12 tank cars, interconected with a set of pipes, so that one coupling to a pump-in or pump-out device was sufficient to either empty or load all of the interconnected tank cars with just one coupling, which greatly reduced the amount of time and trouble of having to load / unload each of the cars individually.

I can't remember for sure, but I think that I saw a set of these tank cars around several years ago. Not sure on that time frame.

ACLfan

Back to the interconnected tank cars - I saw on an SP video, that that's what they used on the 'tank trains' to haul oil in California. Does UP still operate those tank trains?

We called those the "Oil Cans", on the SP. A great job, for those who got it, with a very short, VERY heavy train, with thousands and thousands of HP, to get it moving, and keep it running, over the mountains. DP or helpers were the norm, and they carried crude, and lightly refined "sweet oil", with the TankTrain sometimes in the mix, with it's multi car, flex-connectors. Someone did a decent job, on writing about the Oil Cans, back in the 90's. (Trains, or Extra 2200 south) We used to get them through Selkirk, as well, on Conrail, used to deliver diesel fuel, to the facilities at Selkirk. Regards

Are these Terra cars set up like the Tank Train Cars are? where you hook up a rubber Pipe from one car to the next and then allow the cars to over flow into the next car while filling them?