Tank car unloading
For the kinds of petroleum products handled at oil dealers like
this one, a simple hose to attach to the tank car bottom outlet
would suffice for gravity unloading (though the pumping sys-
tem was used to move the product to its storage tank). All that
needs to be modeled is some suitable hoses on the ground.
Figure 7 shows the kind of thing I mean. The simplest way to
do this is to use the unloading pipe from the McGraw Oil kit
parts, which is what I did. For hose, I used a coiled piece of No.
22 wire with black insulation, painting each end Tamiya “Dark
Copper” to represent bronze couplings. One can show such a
hose connected to piping, or not.
The truck load-
ing facility
Bulk oil dealers usually
operated tank trucks for
local delivery, and, of
course, had to be able
to load trucks from the
storage tanks. I built a
simple, small facility of
this kind, starting with
the platform for the
smaller structure in the
McGraw Oil kit, plus the
loading pipe from the
kit. I added side walls
and a roof, as is com-
mon in these structures.
It’s shown unpainted,
before attachment of
the roof, in (32).
33: An Associated delivery truck, made from a Mini-
Metals 1941–46 Chevrolet tank truck, shown at a
grade crossing.
33
32: The truck loading facility,
white styrene attached to the
gray platform from the McGraw
Oil kit, before adding a roof
and painting.
32
A delivery truck
One way to help identify your oil dealer is to have a highway
delivery truck alongside your loading platform. I used a Classic
Metal Works (“Mini-Metals”) 1941–1946 Chevrolet tank truck,
and repainted it. These models can be disassembled from
underneath, handy for painting, since glazing can be removed
and the tires kept separate.
The tank supplied with this model looks too big for the kind of
trucks built in 1946 and before, so probably represents a later
addition to an older chassis.
Although I don’t know exactly how Associated delivery trucks
were painted, I chose to paint mine the same red color used
for trim on the structures. For emblems and lettering, I used
the same Microscale set used for the vertical tank emblem,
87-874, along with pieces from their O-scale set, 48-434.
Getting Real Column - 18
MRH-Mar 2014
