Ibertren - 355 - Tank Car, Two Dome - Gulf

Road Name History: Gulf Oil was a major global oil company in operation from 1901 to 1985. The eighth-largest American manufacturing company in 1941 and the ninth largest in 1979, Gulf Oil was one of the Seven Sisters oil companies. Prior to its merger with Standard Oil of California, Gulf was one of the chief instruments of the Mellon family fortune; both Gulf and Mellon Financial had their headquarters in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, with Gulf's headquarters, the Gulf Tower, being Pittsburgh's tallest building until the completion of the U.S. Steel Tower.

Gulf Oil Corporation (GOC) ceased to exist as an independent company in 1985, when it merged with Standard Oil of California (SOCAL), with both rebranding as Chevron in the United States. Gulf Canada, Gulf's main Canadian subsidiary, was sold the same year with retail outlets to Ultramar and Petro-Canada and what became Gulf Canada Resources to Olympia & York. However, the Gulf brand name and a number of the constituent business divisions of GOC survived. Gulf has experienced a significant revival since 1990, emerging as a flexible network of allied business interests based on partnerships, franchises and agencies.

Brand/Importer Information: Ibertrén is a model train manufacturer based in Barcelona, Spain. Ibertren started its business in 1973, as a subsidiary of Model-Iber. Its objective was the manufacture of toy trains to scale. It was intended to offer a quality toy that at the same time created public for rail modeling. In 1992, Model-Iber ceased its activity due to financial problems. The manufacture of Ibertren was stopped in that year, ending its first period. In 2004 the activity of the brand was resumed, dedicated to rail modeling directed to adults in scale H0 and abandoning completely the sector for youngsters. In 2008 the production of elements in scale 2N re-emerged. The company full name after relaunch is "Ibertrén Modelismo S.L.".

Ibertrén started producing N (1: 160) scale models, which they called 3N, with a dedicated 3rd-rail power pick-up. The system was not performing well and was also incompatible with the system commonly used by other manufacturers. It was finally abandoned in favor of the conventional N 2-rail power pick-up that Ibertrén called 2N that was introduced in the early 1980's.

Documentation including all catalogs and price lists from 1973 to 1992 can be found on www.TrenMiniatura.es shared space.