Re: Western Railway Preservation Society

Greg Maxwell Wrote:
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> The SV 99 was the largest of the Standard Oil cars
> at 6,500 gallons. The smaller cars like SOCO X-101
> held about 3,000 gallons.
>
> Greg Maxwell

For that reason we thought the tank we now have was the actual 99 tank. Now we know that these tanks were widely used on standard gauge cars as well. It is still possible that it is the original tank, but to date we have found nothing to indicate that is true. One story of it's disposal was related to one of our members, possibly in a bar. That story is that the tank was cut in two to make pontoons for some kind of gold dredging operation, and was later sold and shipped to S. America. That yarn sounds somewhat unlikely, but I know enough about mining to never say never. Because S.O. retained ownership of the tank they could have done almost anything with it, but by that date they probably did not retain it for use as a rail car.