San Juan Car Co. UTLX “GRAMPS” tank car in On30

Reviewed by Chris Lane

Certain cars just say "narrow gauge." The Tiffany reefers of the Denver, South Park & Pacific, the East Broad Top steel hoppers, the ex-Swayne skeleton cars on the West Side Lumber, and one of the most iconic of all, the "GRAMPS" lettered UTLX tank cars that ran on the Rio Grande. San Juan Car Co. is offering a new model of this car in On30 (and On3) and it’s a beauty. It boasts excellent and exacting detailing along with very neat and well-executed paint and decoration, all in ready-to-run form.

As a rule, railroads didn’t own the tank cars that ran on their lines; rather they contracted with a leasing company for their use. One such company was the Union Tank Car Line or as it is known by its reporting marks, UTLX. They started in the 1880’s and are still in the business of provided rail cars to haul petroleum and other liquid products today. Between 1924 and 1930, UTLX contracted with the car shops in Alamosa, Colorado on the Denver & Rio Grande Western to construct approximately 41 cars to serve on the narrow gauge lines. The Alamosa shops had previously done this sort of work for the Continental Oil Co of Ponca City, Oklahoma. Better known as Conoco (reporting marks CONX), these cars were a mixed lot of tank sizes and styles, and they rode both on flatcar underframes and steel channel frames. UTLX provided a more homogenous lot of tanks, all in the nominally 6,500 gallon range, and the D&RGW built tank cars riding on channel underframes and 4’-8” archbar trucks. These were the so-called “narrow frame” cars and were numbered in the 12000-13999 series. Many, but not all of these cars were equipped with tank heaters to aid in the unloading of cargo. San Juan will be producing a model of these cars sometime early in 2011.

In the late 1930’s UTLX had the Rio Grande build 25-28 additional cars. These were "Van Dyke" type cars with no underframe. Named for a UTLX employee who invented the concept, Van Dyke cars utilize a heavier bottom panel on the riveted tank, and the bolsters and draft gear are riveted to that. The tank itself provides the structural strength of the car, making an additional underframe unnecessary. All were equipped with heaters making them true Van Dyke cars. These cars rode on 25-ton 4'-8" cast steel Andrews trucks and were numbered between 55000-55999 and between 57400-59999. The trucks were replaced in 1939 with new 30-ton American Steel Foundry trucks and the old trucks were sold to the D&RGW for use on their 34’ stock cars.

The GRAMPS lettering was applied sometime before 1940. Alamosa oil refinery owner Lafayette Hughes was leasing the cars to move oil from the Farmington, New Mexico oil fields to his refinery and reportedly had the cars lettered thusly so he could point out "his" cars to his grandchildren. It is important to note that while only the frameless cars received the GRAMPS lettering, not all the cars did. Any with side ladders were excluded, and the photographic evidence suggests there were at least a few others that never wore the logo. So, while all GRAMPS cars are the Van Dykes San Juan has produced, not all Van Dykes were GRAMPS.

In 1947 both types of cars were renumbered based on tank heater style (or lack there of) and were done sequentially this time. The Van Dyke cars were renumbered 88150-88157 and this is the numbered scheme that San Juan has decorated the cars for. All the cars were renumbered a final time in 1956.

I was fortunate to be editing the new Slim Gauge Cars – Second Edition when I received the San Juan model and therefore had dimensional drawings handy. San Juan obtained UTLX folio sheets and did a number of "field trips" to measure surviving cars while researching the model. Their hard work paid off, as I can find no discrepancy between the drawings and the model nor is there any obvious error or omission in the detail parts on the model. In a word, this tank car is superb.

The model weighs 5.2 ounces, which is right in the range for a model of this length in O scale narrow gauge. The car is equipped with San Juan’s Evolution™ coupler set at On3 height. This coupler’s scale appearance and lack of visible springs enhances the model's appearance without sacrificing magnetic uncoupling, performance or compatibility with Kadee® equipped cars. The trucks are the correct cast steel type for the post 1939 era and are both well detailed and free rolling.

Minimum radius is a big deal in model railroading and that is especially true in On30. While previous San Juan On30 cars could always sneak around a smaller radius than their On3 counterparts, those radiuses were always higher than many people normally associate with On30, and that remains true for this car. On30 Annual author Bill Iwan is using the cars on 28" radius curves with no issues, and that matches my testing. I can’t give you a dead minimum radius with any confidence on an unmodified car. One difference between the On3 and On30 version is the factory elimination of the springs on the sides of the draft gear, to give the On30 wheetsets a little more clearance. Like the commercials always say "your actual mileage may vary" and your minimum radius will decrease in direct proportion to the amount of that gorgeous piping and brake rigging you are willing to eliminate or move.

The model is decorated in a matte black paint expertly applied. No runs, no drips, no errors! The large GRAMPS logo is a flat silver and the lettering is an orange-yellow. A recent letter to the editor in Railroad Model Craftsman from a member of the Illinois Railway Museum provided the UTLX paint card, which specified the lettering color as "Chrome Yellow." Whatever you call the color, it matches perfectly with color photos of the UTLX cars.

This car is in a word, awesome. I could go on, but why? Just look at the photos! The prototype operated from 1939 to 1969, so it fits in the most popular era of narrow gauge modeling, and you don’t have to model the D&RGW to use one. Simply get one of the GRAMPS lettered cars and lease it to your railroad.