I shot this on May 29th in Oregon. It's a tank train that passes through Columbia County a few times a week.
Shorter clip of same train
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Very cool; and great scenery, too. I'm a big fan of the BNSF RR (also UP and other western RRs). I even model the southwestern US (Arizona desert, specifically) on my O-Gauge layout that I'm working on building.
I was in Williams, AZ (along BNSF's Seligman Subdivision) last weekend to ride the Grand Canyon RR Train with my dad. While we were there (and also Kingman, AZ) we did quite a bit of train watching. We saw quite a few BNSF freights, and even an older BNSF H1 C40-8W.
I'm also a big fan of the BNSF Tier 4 GEVO locomotives, and I pre-ordered one of the new, upcoming Lionel BNSF ET44C4 models recently.
A BNSF Tank Train would be pretty easy to model in O-Gauge. All a modeller would need is a few BNSF (and maybe CSX) modern diesels, 2 Atlas O BNSF Buffer Cars, and a lot of Lionel 30K Tank Cars (at least a dozen or two; preferably some with Freightsounds, too).
I've always liked the "through the weeds" old rural track as shown in the second video. The most interesting car in the consist is that outside braced boxcar with roof hatches right behind the engines. It would be nice to know the story on that.
@breezinup posted:I've always liked the "through the weeds" old rural track as shown in the second video. The most interesting car in the consist is that outside braced boxcar with roof hatches right behind the engines. It would be nice to know the story on that.
That is the "buffer car", with one at each end of that unit train.
My understanding is that it helps protect the crews and engines in case there is a derailment. Gives the tank cares something to run into that is less likely to cause ignition
@Hot Water posted:That is the "buffer car", with one at each end of that unit train.
@cbojanower posted:My understanding is that it helps protect the crews and engines in case there is a derailment. Gives the tank cares something to run into that is less likely to cause ignition
I know it's a buffer car. And there's another at the rear. But my inquiry was with respect to the physical car itself. An outside braced boxcar with roof hatches is (at least to me) a bit unusual. That's what I meant when I said it's the most interesting car in the consist. It would be interesting to know what it's history is and what it was used for originally.
The car has bottom outlets, so I'd call it a covered hopper, although it is an uncommon design. I have vague recollection of some railroad (Southern Railway?) converting some boxcars to covered hoppers which had a similar appearance to these cars. Maybe these are also conversions. Thanks to @breezinup for calling attention to the cars.
Donald Keiser (@3rail here on the OGR Forum) has a great video on his prototypically-accurate O-Scale BNSF Oil Train. His video goes into detail about the train, especially the buffer cars. BNSF uses Airslide Covered Hoppers that are ballasted with sand to make them heavier. On his BNSF Oil Train, Donald uses Atlas O Airslide Covered Hoppers that are accurate to the prototype.
