Assembled Type 21 Insulated Tank Cars for your HO Fleet

During the decade immediately following World War I, the petroleum industry grew rapidly as automobiles and trucks were manufactured by the millions. To carry fuel and lubricants for all these motor vehicles, as well as for industrial uses, railroad tank cars were built in numbers never matched before or since. Many of these tank cars were American Car and Foundry Type 21s, a design first introduced in 1921 and produced by the thousands.

Most AC&F Type 21s were conventional cars with exposed riveted tanks. However, such products as tar, asphalt, and heavy oils could only be loaded and unloaded if they were kept hot, and cars used for shipments of this kind had insulation applied to their tanks and domes which was protected by a thin sheet metal jacket. A number of large petroleum companies, as well as tank car leasing companies, owned and operated insulated cars of this type, many of which were equipped with internal steam heating coils.

Like the conventional Type 21 tank cars, these insulated cars proved to be very durable and remained in revenue service for many years, sometimes for several different owners. From the 1930s through the early 1950s their original KC airbrake equipment was replaced with AB brakes, as required by the Association of American Railroads interchange rules, but otherwise they remained unchanged and in some cases lasted for up to half a century before being retired.

See below for available roadnames and numbers:

MPCX Magnolia #1608 (white tank)
MPCX Magnolia #1593 (white tank)
EORX Cities Service #1127
EORX Cities Service #1149
GATX General American #37227
GATX General American #37449
MPCX Magnolia #1536 (black tank)
MPCX Magnolia #1578 (black tank)
SDRX Sinclair #26107
SDRX Sinclair #26192
TCX Texaco #9364
TCX Texaco #9372