Focus on Freight Cars Freebie

While going through the head end, passenger, and locomotive photos in preparation for Focus on Freight Cars, Vol. Eleven, I found a single freight car photo mixed in with the aforementioned subject matter. That part of the series is closed, unless the remainder of the freight car negatives turn up at some future date. However, I thought I would share the photo that was uncovered. It was Union Oil of California 8018, a three compartment car built in May, 1916 (near as I can discern, although the image is not perfectly sharp) by General American. It is a pre-1917 GATC design, with different bolsters than used on the 1917-design cars and slightly higher running boards (note the metal pieces on top of the center sills at the draft gear, used to raise the height of the running boards). It is typical of cars built prior to May 1, 1917, with a single row of rivets where the radially arranged tank sheets overlapped. This car has double rivet rows in two places; on these double rows, the row closest to the center of the car is where the tank sheets overlap and the rows closer to the ends of the car are where the center compartment's tank heads (ends) are located (thank you to Dan Smith for the correction). Dan also noted that this car had seven tank bands. I will add that the three bands where the dome are located are "yoke-style", splitting and circling the dome. The ones located at the domes at the ends of the car also have steps on their faces, a common trait on early GATC design cars. On this car, the center compartment ("B") was 2,057 gallons capacity, while the nearest compartment ("C") was 2,984 and the far compartment ("A") was 2,982 gallons capacity. The double rivet rows are spaced relatively close to each other because of the disparity between the capacities of the center compartment versus the two outer compartments. Enjoy!

Note: this post has been edited to correct an error in the original posting, as described above.