Hello Geoff,

The basic Märklin model number is 4440 for the tank wagon.It's a special series model known as number 86707 in Koll's catalogue.
Most probably some 1000 of these wagons were produced.
Hope this is what you're looking for.

Kind regards
Guus

Hmmz... Guus, you were first!

I'm collecting tank cars too. Märklin has a bad habit to recycle car numbers. Or sometimes, don't give numbers at all. So was Märklin 4443 sold as AGIP and Minol tank car. The best you can do is to make from every car a picture, and give a good description from the car and the text printed on it. You can also group the cars in ”family's”, like cars from the 44XX series and so on. I hope this can be a kind of help.
So do I own a Calpam tankcar, based on a 44XX tank car, and have not any number from that car. Although it was sold seperately and in a set of 3 cars.
Also a known item to me, Märklin once made car kits in the 49XX series. It often happened that a Primex car was updated with a 49XX kit. This was done with the AVIA and HEIZOL tank cars.

Since you guys are "Tank car" fans maybe you can tell me what type/class of tank car M typically models?? For all other cars M is careful to state that it is type "Eoas", "Habbins", ets. But I don't see that on the tank car models???

As I see it M typically makes variations over the following 2 axel and 4 axel tank cars: Shell 2 axel (4442) Shell 4 axel (4756)

is to look it up in the Koll, something many highly engaged Märklin railfans or even most collectors have - sure people in forums like this can tell it too as they are usually one or the other category .

So just continue to ask!

I would not neccessarily call it a bad habit; it is just normal for many companies to reuse same product numbers after some pause - which is exactly the case with the two mentioned tank cars (AGIP 1984-1987 and Minol 1994-1999).

The Calpam car you mention is listed in the Koll special catalog (2005 issue pg. 459 and 853) with #98717 (Märklin #4441.032) for the single car and #98701 (Märklin #94023) for the one in that set.

Hope this helped.

Regards,
Lutz