Boston Petroleum Refiners
Beacon Oil Co., Massachusetts Oil Refining Company, and New England Oil Refining Co.

Introduction

After the cessation of WWI hostilities, businesses worldwide began to plan for a return to peace time economy. Business leaders in New England began efforts to construct petroleum refining plants in New England to take advantage of largely Mexican (later superceded by Venezuelan) crude oil supplies, pipelines from US producing regions having not penetrated New England. Three new refineries would be built in as few years: the Massachusetts Oil Refining Co. of East Braintree, the Beacon Oil Company of Everett, and finally, the New England Oil Refining Company of Fall River.

Massachusetts Oil Refining Company

Founded in 1919, the Massachusetts Oil Refining Company was majority owned by Island Oil & Transport Corporation. There is evidence that the company leased cars from General American near the end of 1920¹. The 1922 Petroleum Register stated that the company had 240 cars in service, but no further details have come to light. Their refinery was built on the Fore River in East Braintree, where ocean going tankers could access their unloading facility. By 1923, the company went through a reorganization and was acquired by the newly formed Cities Service Refining Co.

Cities Service Refining Company

After Cities Service Refining was formed in July 1923, they moved quickly to acquire rail cars to distribute their refined petroleum products thoughout New England. Orders were submitted to car builders, and their first ORER listing appeared by the Dec 1923 issue. However, the origins of most of their earliest cars are unknown, and those cars also dissappeared quickly. It remains to be researched, but those cars may have been a continuation of the prior operation's lease or may have come to CSRX second hand (and even returned, if the source was another Cities Service-held company.) By 1925, the fleet reached its greatest extent with 257 cars. After May 1936, but by Jul 1937, the CSRX fleet began to receive new reporting marks, CSOX, and retained the same numbers as the Cities Service fleet was consolidated. While the CSRX reporting marks continued to appear in the Apr 1939 register, they were no longer included in the CSOX listing by Apr 1941.

Table 1: CSRX tank cars

Figure 1: GATC, from Oil Weekly, 3/15/24.

Figure 2: ACF, Lot 9996, 5/2/1925.

Figure 3: ACF, Lot 9756, 6/2/1924. This lot of 75 10,000 Type 21 cars was split between CSRX and Crew Levick, another Cities Service subsidiary. The groups were CSRX 1426-1455 and CLX 2101-2145.

Beacon Oil Company

Beacon Oil Co. was organized in 1919 by principals associated closely with the Massachusetts Oil Companies. Construction began at once of a refinery sited in Everett, MA, with its excellent Port of Boston access. The first crude oil arrived in July of 1920; the tanker left shortly after it was emptied, having had newly refined fuel oil loaded right back into its hold.

Article

Beacon began acquiring tank cars as the refinery construction drew to a close; no cars were listed in the Feb 1920 Official Railway Equipment Register (ORER.) Cars in general, were numbered as they were received, but there are exceptions. With company records not known to be extant, piecing together a detailed roster remains incomplete. ORER's give a scope to their overall holdings. The oil company received most, but not all, of their rolling stock from American Car & Foundry Co, so records from that company have been essential. Further series were reported as having been ordered by Beacon in Railway Age magazine's annual listing of freight car orders, but that source is not exhaustive, and gaps in knowledge about the BCNX fleet remain. Some of the data from ACF can not be easily "fit" into the existing series, which creates a good deal of uncertainty, as well as inconsistencies in dates and other details. Union Tank Line renumberings are 'best-guess' based on process of elimination in the UTLX ORER's and the 1919 and 1936 Tank Car tariffs. Take the following roster as "unconfirmed."

Table 2: BCNX tank cars

Figure 4: ACF, Lot 9051, 7/30/1920, included 55 cars, 20 more than required to fill series 1025-1059.

Figures 5 & 6: ACF, Lot 9058, 8/4/1920, believed to be series 1060-1084.

Figure 7: ACF, Lot 9464, 2/25/1922, believed to be series 1155-1204.

Figure 8: ACF, Lot 9586, 3/21/1923, series 1375-1384.

New England Oil Refining Company

The third new oil refinery built in the region was that of the New England Oil Refining Company at Fall River, MA. The parent company, New England Oil Corp, had interests in Venezuelan oil fields. Tank cars were ordered the year after the refinery opened -all were 10,000 gal capacity- but it is unknown what transportation accomodations were made prior to that.

Table 3: NEOX tank cars

Figure 9 & 10: ACF, Lot 9507, 1/25/1923.

Shell Eastern Petroleum Products, Inc.

At the beginning of 1929, Shell acquired certain of New England Oil Refining's assets, placing them under the newly formed Shell Eastern Products Corp, as the centerpiece of a major new marketing expansion into the eastern seaboard. The refinery was shut down only months after the purchase, and Shell would subsequently operate the facility only as a receiving terminal for refinined products produced by Shell elsewhere. However, to increase capacity and perhaps to provide for additional flexibility in delivery options, additional new cars were quickly acquired. This consisted of several orders for new cars placed with ACF, including some placed by Shell subsidiary Asiatic Petroleum, but delivered to SEPX. However, a large group of cars were received from General American as well. No clear photo of these has been located, but a much later image of such a car, after it had been first transferred to Roxana Petroleum, then Union Tank Line, and lastly to UTL's Canadian arm, Procor, suggests the car may have been contructed as early as 1923!

Table 4: SEPX tank cars

Between 7/38 and 1/41, these cars would be renumbered with Roxana Petroleum reporting marks, RPX, another Shell subsidiary, but the numbers were retained. Ca. 1947, Shell would sell their tank car fleet to Union Tank Line. These cars can be traced to specific car number ranges in the UTLX fleet, but this work is not yet complete.

Figure 11: ACF, Lot 831, 2/1929.

Figure 12: UTLX 77701, a former SEPX/RPX 8501-8750 series car now in Canadian service, courtesy Bill Kelly.

Figure 13: ACF, Lot 878, 4/29/1929, CSRM.

Car Use and Taxation

Notes

1: The Annual Report of the Secretary of State of Ohio, Year ending Jun 30, 1921, has an entry in its tabulation of Railway Equipment Contracts executed on page 147 for a contract between General American Tank Car Corp, lessor, and Massachuestts Oil Refining Co, Inc, lessee, dated 12/13/1920. No further details are provided.

Sources

Official Railway Equipment Register (many issues). New York: The Railway Equipment and Publication Co..

Big Oil Refinery for Braintree Mass, Oil & Gas News, Vol V, No. 26, Aug 14, 1919. Kansas City, MO. Accessed online, hathitrust.org: here.

Boyd, E.B., Agent (Issued 11/23/1920, effective 12/4/1920.) Freight Circular 6-Q, Showing Capacities of Tank Cars used in the Transportation of Freight. Chicago.
Courtesy Ian Cranstone.

Kipp, L.E., Agent (Issued 5/26/36, effective 7/5/1936.) Freight Tariff No 300-A, Showing Capacities of Tank Cars used in the Transportation of Freight. Chicago.
Republished: Cranstone, Ian (2014.)

Railway Age (Jan issues, 1921 thru 1930.)

Thank you to Dave Bott, Don Hensley, Douglas van Veelen, Al Westerfield, and University of Pennsylvania for supplying ORER data. Thank you to the Barriger Collection and Ray Breyer for AC&F Builders photos, Ed Hawkins and Al Westerfield for AC&F Lots data.

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Posted 4/5/24.  Updated 9/11/2026  Maintained by Earl Tuson