Hi all Received in the mail today the DVD, "Scarlet and Grey Memories". One of the trains they showed was a 1994/95, local between Surf and Lompoc, with a helium tank car in the consist. It was going to be dropped at Vandenberg AFB. Until seeing this video, I didn't think these cars were used anymore! I couldn't believe it!:tb-shocked: So any one out there with these classic cars, go ahead and run them in a modern consist! Thom
Up to a point. The U. S. Bureau of Land Management operated a fleet of these up until a few years after the video mentioned. The Helium is primarily used to pressurize fuel tanks on rockets for NASA Kennedy Space Center at Cape Canaveral and the Air Force at Vandenberg. They now transport it by truck. By 1999 they were all scrapped or in museums. The loading tracks at the production/extraction plants outside of Amarillo have been ripped up. And of course if you run them in "the 80s and 90s" be sure to remove the roof walks.
What is interesting about the models of these cars is how good they look vs. the prototype considering how long ago they were tooled. I was in Amarillo in 2002 and I am pretty sure I saw one or two of these on an isolated track outside of town. Could be "faulty memory" though... not about Amarillo as I've only been there once.
I think I was told that there were a few left on a blind lead with no access to any mainline for a while. One museum was able to take possession of one but had to move it out by truck. The rest were cut up in place. You probably saw those cars.
