Atlas Model Railroad Co. Product Review

HO LPG CAR LOOKS GREAT

MODEL RAILROADER – January 2004

An 11,000-gallon, 40’ tank car is the latest addition to the Atlas line of HO freight cars. It comes ready-to-run in two versions decorated for eight private owners.

The prototype is an American Car & Foundry class Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC) 105A-300W tank car built from 1947 through the1950s in many similar versions. This indicates it’s an insulated, fusion-welded, high-pressure steel tank with top loading and unloading valves for liquefied petroleum gases (LPG).

Prototype drawings appear in the Car Builder’s Cyclopedias published in the late 1940s and 1950s. The Atlas model includes the post-war details and lettering with dimensions that fall in the range of prototype sizes.

The tank cars are made mostly of molded plastic with excellent fine detail throughout. Assembly is absolutely clean without a hint of excel adhesive.

The railings is .015” wire but the fine grab irons (also .015”) are molded in place with details including forged ends and bolts. The running boards have a diamond pattern while the dome platforms are open gratings. The underbody has an AB brake system.

Each model comes with AccuMate magnetic couplers body-mounted at the proper height. The couplers may easily be replaced.

These cars include 50-ton solid-bearing trucks with rigid acetal plastic frames. Each wheelset has brass wheels mounted on needle-point stub axles pressed into an axle tube. All of the wheelsets match the National Model Railroad Association standards gauge.

The models weigh 3 ½ ounces each, so they match the NMRA’s recommended practice of 1 ounce plus ½-ounce per inch of length.

The paint schemes are smooth and neatly printed with clear, readable data. Atlas has even included the tiny lettering that’s applied along the sides of the underframe and on the brake reservoir.

It’s great to see Atlas fill a gap in the HO car roster with a finely detailed model of a common tank car. – Jim Hediger, senior editor

HO ACF LPG Tank Car
Price: $23.95 decorated, $18.95 undecorated

Manufacturer
Atlas Model Railroad Co. Inc.
378 Florence Ave.
Hillside, NJ 07205-1799
www.atlasrr.com

Description
Ready-to-run plastic freight cars
Road Names
With dome platform: Associate Cooperatives (built 5/53), Fuelane Corp. (built 5/48), Gulf Oil Corp. (10/54), Pyroflax Bottled Gas (1/52), Shippers Car Line (8/47), Sid Richardson Gasoline (8/53), and undecorated
Without dome platform: California Dispatch Line (6/48), Warren Petroleum Corp. (10/50), and undecorated.