During the post-war period Lionel included tank cars in many, if not most of their sets. In order to avoid violating anyone's copyright, even on commonly known facts within the public domain, I will resist the temptation to go through all of the ins and outs of tank car production. Rather, I will just speculate.

Of all the tank cars produced by Lionel during this time period, it appears the bulk of these bore the Sunoco logo, which leads me to believe Lionel had struck some sort of agreement with the company. From a number of sources, it appears as many as ten different tank car models were Sunoco. Further, as was typical of Lionel in the post-war years, many of these had variations, resulting in these being cataloged as different "types". It seems Lionel had a habit of using various parts or processes to produce any particular car.

For example, I know from personal inspection that the #6465 had at least two "types". The type shown here has six lines of technical data on the right. On five of my 6465's, the last line of copy is the word "tank". However, on a sixth one, the last line of copy is the number 6465. Was this by design? Did they make new stamps and someone made a mistake in typesetting the artwork? After all, there does not appear to be other differences between the two - just the last line of type on the technical data stamp.

Lionel produced Sunoco tank cars in single, double and triple dome versions. I know from personal experience that there were two different designs of single dome cars. The ones I have pictured at right used the pre-war style design. These were also longer cars, and I have heard the phrase "deluxe" used to describe the longer cars. Eventually, it appears Lionel terminated this design in favor of shorter, plastic single dome cars. Single, double and triple dome cars were all produced in this shorter, plastic production.

While most of the Sunoco tank cars were silver, I have seen photos of these in black, gray and what appears to be white.

It appears Lionel made a change in their tank car strategy at some point by switching their tank cars from Sunoco to Gulf, as I have seen versions with the Gulf logo. There are also a few versions with my personal favorite road name - Lionel Lines. I have also seen photos of a Cities Service version.

I have yet to acquire any post war chemical tank cars, although I understand several versions exist. My local hobby shop has a number of these running on their operating layout. The ones I have seen have a catwalk around a single dome and they use both the Gulf and Lionel Lines logos.