Modellers inspiration No. 101. TEA Tankers The conveyance of liquids & chemicals on the railway has historically been the preserve of the 4 wheel tanker. As business & industry requirements grew, it became apparent that a significantly larger tanker was required - enter the 100 ton wagon. The now venerable TEA tanker was first introduced in the 1960’s. Different versions appeared with subtle changes to the ends (conical), bogies and with the Company logo such as Amoco, Esso, Gulf, Jet, Murco, Shell etc applied to the sides of the barrel. When first introduced these were supplied in grey (for petroleum products) & black (for heavier products such as diesel & oil). However, in the late 1980’s, British Petroleum (BP) revealed their brightly coloured green paintwork (at the same time this was applied to their TTA) and the genie was out of the bottle! Long block trains of TEA tankers in the same livery were standard practice, however, mixed rakes were not uncommon especially when combined with the TTA. Even today the VTG vehicles can be seen in multi coloured rakes operating from refineries to storage facilities. In model form the Bachmann 00 gauge model was introduced in 2007 & has been produced in a variety of liveries since. This was regarded as a significant improvement on any models previously manufactured. In 2017 Heljan provided the ‘BOC’ tanker wagon in various similar (but different) liveries. These represented versions for transporting either liquid oxygen or liquid nitrogen and were originally supplied by Olivia Trains. Subsequently, these were to become available via Hatton’s before their demise. Revolution Trains entered the market in 2018 with their fleet of wagons. These included 4 grey tankers complete with the EWS logo, a Freightliner green version as well as a number in VTG liveries including red, black, & blue colours amongst others. Cavalex in 2022 provided a number of variants including a couple of barrier wagons. Of specific note are the heavily distressed/weathered wagons that look superb. These were supplied in singles as well as a 3 pack.

Posted by Going2theDogs at 2024-04-06 07:33:42 UTC