Sorry. Above was for the framed cars. This is the Frameless. Written by Steve Swanson and Jeff Johnson:
Generally, early transporting of liquids by railcar consisted of flatcars with mere tubs mounted on the deck. By the 1870s, the cylindrical tank was developed and was originally banded to a wooden frame or flatcar. In the early 1900s, inventor John Van Dyke created the “X-car” design which essentially joined the tank to the truck bolsters by means of a unique anchor construction. This design increased the safety and practicability of the tank car to allow reliable transport of gasoline and relatively dangerous chemicals that were being developed throughout the later industrial period. The Van Dyke cars were developed for Standard Oil’s railcar leasing subsidiary known as Union Tank Lines.
In April 1937, the Gilmore Oil Co. of Los Angeles, California arranged to lease 25 Union Tank Car Company 6,500 gallon Class V frameless tank cars. Fitted with heater coils, these were sent to Colorado to provide road oil to the Southwestern part of the state for the paving of US Highway 160 west of Mancos, Colorado. Previously assigned to Standard Oil of California, the tanks were shipped (loaded with the road oil) to Alamosa, Colorado for transfer to the narrow gauge. The Denver & Rio Grande Western Railroad re-fitted these Van Dyke tanks onto 25 sets of 50,000 lb. cast steel side frame Andrews Trucks that had been in service on D&RGW 34-foot stock cars. Using the same road numbers they arrived with, the UTLX tank cars in narrow gauge service consisted of 18 cars in the UTLX 55000 series, and 7 cars in the 58000 series. The first road oil reached Mancos on April 26, 1937, and shipments continued through October 1937.
After the 1939 paving season (at the insistence of the D&RGW) UTLX purchased 25 sets of 60,000 lb. Bettendorf trucks to replace the Andrews trucks. These were applied at Alamosa during December, 1939 and January, 1940. Just prior to 1940, about 14 of the frameless tanks were leased to Gramps Oil and Refining for the purpose of shipping crude oil from Chama, NM to Alamosa, Colorado. It was at this time that the famous “GRAMPS” logo was applied to most of the leased cars. The remaining cars were stored at Alamosa until the highway-paving project resumed following the winter of 1940, when some cars stenciled with the large silver “GRAMPS” were used in Road Oil Service to Iola, Colorado.
In 1945, the Colorado State Highway Dept. resumed paving along routes close to the Colorado narrow gauge system and 10 more UTLX 55000 series cars were leased to the Ohio Oil Co. for shipments of road oil. These cars were placed on Andrews trucks and were used through the summer of 1946. After being placed in storage until February, 1947, these cars were transferred back to standard gauge trucks in Alamosa. During March and April of 1947, the 25 frameless cars were re-numbered between 88150 and 88177, with the numbering series respective to the type of heater with which a car was equipped.
In May, 1948, thirteen UTLX 55000 series 6,500 gallon tank cars returned to service on the Colorado narrow gauge and remained in service until July 1953. In 1956, the tank cars were subjected to a final re-numbering plan which netted the remaining frameless cars in the 11034 to 11058 series.
Crude oil shipments from Chama continued to Alamosa’s Oriental “Gramps” refinery until its closing in 1964. In 1965, the remaining 23 frameless UTLX cars were sold to Floyd Reed to be scrapped at his yard in La Jara, Colo.
