Closeup of the dome.

one more

Interesting! So now we know of TWO existing tank cars manufactured by this company; one in 1873 and one in 1888.

Les

No, we know the patterns for the cast domes were made or altered then. Who knows how long the castings might have sat or the patterns waited in the shop for the right order to come along for them to be used? I think we can base a ballpark time frame on those dates, though........that year or within a decade or so is likely. Somebody more familiar with the history and production of that company can get a better approximation.

dave

Dave -

Well, I hope that a "somebody" actually does exist so that he (or she) can tell us. I had never even seen a reference to this company before Hot Metal found the body of that tank car out in the woods behind his house.

Les

This is amazing. So it appears that at least three tanks still survive, and at least two of them are in very good shape. I will go out on a limb and say that since there are differing dates on the dome castings that the dates indicate when they were made. I can see no other purpose for the dates.

I'm basing my caution on experience with patterns at Glover machine Works...another smaller manufacturer that used, reused, altered, and stored thousands of patterns and saved a penny any way they could. If changing a pattern slightly that hadn't been used for 30 years woulkd be cheaper than making a new one, that's what they would do......and a date on it might either be updated or left and ignored if it was a one-off.

There's a lot less purposeful attention to less important functional detail in a lot of this stuff than you'd think once first production patternmaking is handled.

I don't really care what you "believe"......mislead yourself as you see fit. I like verifiable facts better, but that's just a personal choice.

dave

Note that the 1873 car is double riveted while the the 1888 and 1890 dated cars are single riveted.

One of our members, via White's book, has found reference to a very detailed drawing of our later car in the Smithsonian.

Matt Bumgarner

PS- Dave, I'll email you via PM my contact info. I should be around either Thursday or Friday, will be glad to take you over to Link Boiler, musuem site, and our workshop if you have the time.

As hinted, an older car could have a replacement part with a newer date.

Very true, Jim, and I have certainly learned to never say never, but honestly, I have my doubts that someone would actually go back and put essentially a complete double-riveted tank around the earlier dated casting. Just doesn't pass the sniff test.

Matt

OK, one more time...the date is on the PATTERN. The pattern could have been produced earlier than the casting that was made from it for this particular car. The dome top could have been cast for stock and let sit for years before it was used in a car. The car it is on could have had an old dome top stuck on it after any number of incidents.

Glover Machine Works had complete sets of left and right cylinders and valves ready in stock to build 3 new steam locomotives in 1989, and that was 60 years after the actually needed the last ones.

It doesn't pay to assume what seems obvious is always true.

dave

Dave -

Well, we KNOW what Glover did. But we DON'T KNOW what the Harrisburg Car Manufacturing Company did. And since there hasn't yet been an "expert" coming forward to say what their practices were, and since there are probably no artifacts left from their plant since they went out of business in 1891, I am of the thought that perhaps we should take the dates shown for what they say; built that year! Anyway, that's my thought.

Les

Glover was a far cry from Harrisburg. Glover was a small time, penny pinching foundry and machine shop while Harrisburg was a big time production freight car builder. Even back then freight car building was cyclical, so why make up a bunch more castings for orders you don't have? What purpose would it serve to date the casting? What practical purpose would it serve? But dating the construction of the entire car via the dome makes perfect sense.

It really isn't that difficult to change a number on a pattern. Takes about two minutes to do when it is in the pattern shop. Most large foundries would send patterns from storage through the pattern shop for repairs and touch ups before going out to the moulding floor.

But what do I know, I only worked at two foundries and ran my own for a while.

I really like that series of photos in the link on page 1 posted by Matt Bumgarner. It is interesting to see those old names and slogans and wonder exactly what they referred to. Also interesting are the truck designs for those early cars.

The photo of the Union Tank Line car in Matt’s post shows a truck design that appears on many of the Harrisburg cars. I assume that the individual journal box pedestals have their own coil springs. It is not clear what is going on with the relationship between the bolster and the truck frames. I wonder if that is a swing motion truck design. If it is, I wonder if there are primary springs associated with the bolster and truck frame.

I also wonder why the furthest truck in the photo appears to be missing the details at the end of the bolster, in the truck side frame, between the wheels; whereas the nearest truck has some mechanical details in that same area. Moreover, those mechanical details do not seem to show any springs. A swing motion truck would typically show elliptical leaf springs there.

Ron -

I wondered about that truck design too. At first I thought that maybe, in a hurry to get the car photographed, they put an incomplete truck on the one end. But looking at the other car photos in the collection, it occurs on EVERY car that way. Here is my theory (and I am not an expert on trucks); the other truck is "reversed" and has the missing details on the other side, away from the photographer. Possible?

Les