Above are three photos of Atlas tank cars. Tank cars in the
late 70s and early 80s were mostly plain black schemes like seen
here. Atlas makes a wonderful selection of applicable
types. First HPCX is a car owned by the Hercules Chemical
Company. They make chemicals for paper processing and
armaments. It is a 20,700 gallon car. Next is a GATX
tank car. It is owned by a leasing company, also called
GATX. This car is marked for chlorine service. It is a
17,360 gallon car. Finally, MOBX is a petroleum car owned by
Mobil Oil. It is a 23,500 gallon car. Atlas offers all
these cars in multiple road numbers and for multiple owners.
They are probably the best value on the market in tank cars.
Smaller, 11,000 gallon, cars were quite rare in this era, but did
exist. Those smaller cars were made in the 50s and 60s and
were near the ends of their lives in the Chessie Era. I keep
the weathering rather light on tank cars. Most look really
good in the pictures I've seen. I do use dark gray powders on
the top of the car to represent some fading. I did it more
heavily on the HPCX car, note how the road number looks
darker. I also apply gloss coat with a brush around the middle
of the car to represent the sheen of the spilled load. This is
on almost every tank car I've seen.
