Dear N Scale Customers:

Last year we produced a 48 car CP Rail Coal Car Train. This year we will produce a 48 car Sulfer Train using the Intermountian Bathtub Rotary Dump Bathtub Coal Cars.

Many of you may be asking why Pacific Western Rail did 48 road numbers? Well that's easy to explain - have you ever seen a coal train go by with repeating road numbers every 12th car? We haven't, so we thought we would make enough road numbers to satisfy most of our customers needs.

So we are now announcing our next 48 car unit train set to be done in Sultran (with Horizontal Lettering). Back in 2005, we lobbied Intermountian to produce the Bathtub Coal Car. We were given our choice of an exclusive run on either of the two paint schemes that can be run in Sultran.

Since the Horizontal Scheme is the more previlant of the two, we chose to do a run of the Horizontal Scheme instead of the rare Vertical Scheme.

Intermountain has released 24 of the cars with the Vertical Sultran Scheme. So we will now release a 48 car set of the Sultran Bathtub cars with  the Horizonal Graphics.

We had planned all along to hold back on releasing these until Intermountain had released the 24 Vertical Schemed Cars so you would not have to buy all 72 cars at once.

We typically see these trains coming through Vancouver in about a ratio of Horizonal to Vertical Cars of about 4-2. So if you get the 48 car special run from Pacific Western and get 12-24 of the Vertical Sultran cars that Intermountian released, well you have a great 72 car black snake with yellow sulfer loads. Add a couple of Red CP Rail Kato AC4400's or a Blue Kato CEFX Lease AC4400 units to the fromt of the train and you have an awesome site to look at and run.

So here they are, enjoy! We have included some corporate information on Sultran and there opperations in Western Canada.

These cars should be of interest to all of our customers who run BC Rail, CN, & CP Rail. 

We will release these cars in about 3 months. Intermountain has already sent plastic to China for the run. So the run size is locked down. If you do Western Canadian Model Railroading in 1975 to present don't miss out.

• 1-N1142-12A   PWRS Sultran Bathtub Coal Cars Black lettering between ribs Set 1
• 1-N1142-12B   PWRS Sultran Bathtub Coal Cars Black lettering between ribs Set 2
• 1-N1142-12C   PWRS Sultran Bathtub Coal Cars Black lettering between ribs Set 3
• 1-N1142-12D   PWRS Sultran Bathtub Coal Cars Black lettering between ribs Set 4  

Sultran Twenty Year History In the early 70's sulphur was a very abundant yet low-value commodity and there were few markets for the product in Canada. Logistics for handling and transporting the element were chaotic, costly and unreliable. Sulphur producers were frustrated by the inability to dependably and efficiently access growing world markets. As sulphur slowly showed signs of escalating in demand and value, it became apparent that improved methods of transporting and handling the commodity would need to be developed. These new methods had to be cost efficient, environmentally sound and offer reliability and dependability to the sulphur industry and its customers.

By the mid-seventies the beginnings of a company that would assist the industry were underway. Over the next twenty years Sultran would have an important impact on the outcomes and achievements this industry would yield. The result is a successful company that through careful, thorough, and competent measures, transports this commodity from the processing plants to tidewater in a manner that allows its full marketable potential to be realized.

In September of 1974, Petrofina, Shell Canada Resources and Hudson Bay Oil & Gas became key members of an eight-member industry task force. They were assigned the responsibility of developing a mandate for a producer-owned, independently managed, sulphur logistics service company, incorporating the business and offering shares to all interested producers.

On December 16, 1975, after a great deal of work by industry members, Sultran was incorporated as a private company with twenty-three shareholders holding 905,000 shares. In August of the following year, staffing commenced in Calgary with the appointment of the Company's first president and the opening of a tidewater office in North Vancouver. By December 1976, the Company was solidly in place and an eight-member team began the operation of Sultran Ltd. By January 31, 1977, twenty-one customers had signed long term service contracts, called User Agreements, with Sultran. These Agreements solidified the industry's commitment to Sultran and conversely, Sultran's commitment to the industry.

The User Agreement formed the basis of Sultran's service structure and remains basically the same to this day. The Agreement is an evergreen contract that automatically renews itself every three years. Cancellation of this contract is possible by either party and requires one year's notice prior to each renewal date, thus illustrating the stability of this company. The current term of the user agreement runs to December 31, 1999 and involves 24 user customers. Sultran has been fortunate in never having had a User Agreement cancelled.

On February 1, 1977, Sultran became fully operational. Sultran's first billing on February 4, 1977 consisted of 8,083 tons for Shell Canada Resources. Although the great strides of the company had not yet been reached, it was the beginning of a union between Sultran and its sulphur customers and shareholders, that would continually progress and, in time, have a major influence on the sulphur industry.

The logistics, handling and terminalling of this commodity is a very involved and highly structured process. Rail cars are currently scheduled into as many as 11 plants in Alberta and British Columbia to pick up and load the sulphur. The quality of the product is carefully monitored to insure industry standards are met. Canadian sulphur is among the purest in the world produced at 99.9% pure. It is important to maintain this level of purity throughout the transportation process and have it delivered to the customer in this highly refined state. The trains are tracked and expedited from point of origin to tidewater destination. Labour force requirements, including independent testing companies, are ordered to coincide with arrival times. Once at port, the sulphur is either stored in stockpiles or loaded directly to vessels. The commodity is tested further before being lifted onto vessels for delivery overseas. Throughout the process of transporting the sulphur, Sultran carefully takes into consideration the well-being of the environment while strictly adhering to regulations and policies that govern the industry. It now becomes obvious that the transporting of this commodity to international markets is so much more than a simple "train ride".

By the 1980's Sultran was solidly established and ready to forge ahead. The success of working together with major sulphur producers, marketers, railways and other suppliers had afforded increased and reliable access to offshore markets and ever-expanding volumes of business were being realized. New levels of efficiency and advanced capabilities allowed sulphur producers to better compete in global markets. The need to increase efficiency and reliability and to reduce environmental impact led Sultran to begin making major investments in rail cars and terminal facilities. These investments provide solid returns to Users in efficiency, reliability and lower costs over the long term. The long range commitments made to Sultran by the producers made these investments and improvements possible and allowed Sultran to plan and develop for the future.

Since its beginnings in 1976 Sultran has always had strong support at the Board level as well as from producers and marketers. The Board of Directors have given Sultran the support required to allow the organization to move forward. Much of the progress Sultran has made is the direct result of the investment of capital in system improvements. From the acquisition, renovating and building of facilities and the establishment of related companies, to the continuing purchasing and upgrading of equipment that allows operations to run smoothly, Sultran and its subsidiary companies, Pacific Coast Terminals Co. Ltd. and PDS Rail Car Services Corporation, have not only been able to achieve significant results in their industry, but have had positive impacts on their surrounding environments.