タンク貨車　 TankTrain Intermediate, GATX/Now/Early #48696　ジェネシスシリーズ

タンク貨車GATXです。タンク車同士を繋ぐ配管が特徴です。実車だと安全対策が非常に気になりますね。

メーカ：アサーン(Athearn)
スケール：1/87
電源：ＤＣ

TANK TRAIN FEATURES

All-new tooling
Two GATX classes represented: 282-series and 486-series
Correct walkways, manways, and load/unload plumbing per series
Finely detailed walkways with "saw-tooth" tread pattern
Correct transfer plumbing per prototype series and end (A-end or B-end)
Full underbody plumbing and rigging
Detailed, soft vinyl transfer hoses that bend as the car negotiates curves
Cars available as end unit sets and as individual intermediate units
Genesis 100-ton roller-bearing trucks with spinning bearing cap detail
Microscale will be offering a number decal sheet based upon our artwork for the un-numbered cars
Minimum radius: 18"
Recommended radius: 22"

GENESIS FREIGHT CAR FEATURES

Fully-assembled and ready-to-run out of the box
Accurately painted and printed for prototypical realism
Highly-detailed, injection-molded body
Separate wireform grab irons, etched metal coupler platforms
Coupler lift bars, trainline hoses, brake hoses, and hardware
Full underframe detail: air brake reservoir, control valve, and brake cylinder with plumbing and brake rod details
Trucks with rotating bearing caps
Machined metal wheels
Weighted for trouble free operation
Wheels with RP25 contours operate on Code 70, 83, 100 rail
Body-mounted, McHenry operating scale knuckle couplers
Multiple road numbers
Window packaging for easy viewing, plus interior plastic blister safely holds the model for convenient storage

PROTOTYPE HISTORY

Since the beginning of railroading in the United States, tank cars have been an essential part of the freight car fleet. From their primitive beginnings of barrels mounted to flatcars, tank cars have evolved into complex designs optimized for hauling a variety of liquids, from corn syrup to anhydrous ammonia.

While tank cars are prolific, most railroads do not own large fleets of these relatively specialized cars, preferring to make use of fleets managed by freight car companies, such as GATX. One of the larger equipment management companies, GATX can trace its history to the turn of the century, and is well-known for its large fleet of tank cars of varying designs, many of which were built in-house. One of the more distinctive designs to originate from GATX is the "TankTrain", which made its debut in the 1970s. The TankTrain concept was a solution to the problem of long load/unload times for unit train shipments of particular commodities, such as crude oil. A typical unit train can take significant time to load or unload, with the need for workers to attach the necessary hoses and other fittings to each individual car, coupled with the necessary time to load or unload the commodity from each car.

The TankTrain was designed to significantly reduce this time. TankTrain cars are interconnected with a large-diameter, flexible hose between each car, which allows the commodity to be siphoned off at a single point at the end of a set of cars while being "pushed" at the opposite end with inert nitrogen gas. Using this method, TankTrain cars can be loaded or unloaded at a rate of approximately 3,000 gallons per minute, allowing a train of 90 cars to be loaded or unloaded in under five hours. This has the obvious benefit of increased equipment utilization, as well as reduced labor costs, and shorter dwell times at terminals. Additionally, TankTrain cars were built in various sizes and designs to handle various commodities resulting in a wide variety of TankTrain cars roaming the nations’ rails.

TankTrain cars are typically grouped into interconnected sets ranging from two to thirteen cars, the set size varying upon the car types, commodity, and shipper being served. One of the commodities routinely handled by TankTrain cars is crude oil, whose viscous nature, and tendency to be shipped in unit train quantities, lends itself well to the TankTrain concept. The most well-known operation using TankTrain equipment was Southern Pacific railroad