There is no DOT requirement that all tank cars in a particular product service must be a certain color. Basically, the color of a tank car pretty much means nothing other than that’s what the car owner or lessee chose.
I manage rail for a chemical company and in our rail fleet; we have all white cars, white cars with oxide red center bands, white with black center bands, black with red boxes and all black. I’ve seen competitors cars that are blue or varying shades of green.
The color combinations we choose have nothing to do with the characteristics of the product contained in a car and are intended only as a guide to our loaders indicating what product service the car is in. And; even with that, they are still required to double check the reporting mark, car number and placards to confirm the car they intend to load is in the proper product service for what they plan to load in it.
Curt
