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Price of diesel fuel in 1934??

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15 years 6 months ago #4758 by
Hi everyone. I am doing research here at work. My company does event marketing. We are doing a 75th anniversary tour for a large freight company next year. Can anyone steer me to a site that would tell me the price of diesel fuel (or distillate fuel) in 1934? I have searched and searched. I have found information back to 1970.
Thanks so much! Sandy

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15 years 6 months ago #4759 by GM Diesel
Sandy,

My 95 year old granny reckons 8 pence a gallon for distillate in 1934.
Wouldnt call that terribly reliable though as most morning she cant find her teeth. Gran parents were fuel distributors / International dealers.

Barry

GM Diesels - Converting diesel into noise since 1938.

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15 years 6 months ago #4760 by Bono
just fell off my chair...crack up!

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15 years 6 months ago #4761 by Sarge
Sandy,
you need to get down to your library and microfische the old newspapers.


sarge :-X

Sarge B)
ACCO Owner, Atkinson dreamer.

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15 years 6 months ago #4762 by
Gee Sandy i think you should be looking at the price of petrol cause i would say the company would mainly have trucks on petrol . Dave

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15 years 6 months ago #4763 by

Gee Sandy i think you should be looking at the price of petrol cause i would say the company would mainly have trucks on petrol . Dave



I'll go along with Dave on that lot, wasn't till years later that Distillate pumps were available at EVERY petrol site.
Don't think you'll even find too many hysterical vehicles from that period, with diesel motors either.


regards greenie [smiley=vrolijk_1.gif]

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14 years 2 months ago - 14 years 2 months ago #4764 by wombat 46
Nothing like a good trick question, but i take my hat off to granny.
95 and still smiling :)
Last edit: 14 years 2 months ago by wombat 46.

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14 years 2 months ago #4765 by wombat 46
buy the way, when did diesel get introduced?
was it the war or for trains and shipping needs.

i guess dropping 44's of avgas out of a plane at 10,000 feet, over your own men, could cause some ignition issues on impact.
Diesel has a lower flash point i guess. :D

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14 years 2 months ago - 14 years 2 months ago #4766 by
Sandy - Where are you located, and in what country and denomination are you looking for the price of diesel?
In the U.S., in 1934, Diesel was around 10-14 U.S. cents, a U.S. gallon, depending on where in the country it was sold.

Diesel was only just appearing in modest quantities on the fuel market in 1934. In the U.S., gasoline (petrol) was available in vast quanties, and was the fuel of choice for engine manufacturers, oil companies and end-users. Gasoline sold for as low as 5c a U.S. gallon in 1929-1930, and in some oilfields, during the oil drilling rush of the late 1920's, oil was knee deep on the ground, as "gushers" were so often just left to spurt, and were not capped.

Diesel was a by-product of gasoline refining, and was sold initially to shipping lines and only a few fuel distributors. Diesel engines were around in small numbers in ships and boats, and there were quite a few thousand small stationary diesels .. but tractors were still gasoline powered up until late 1931, when Caterpillar produced the first tractor diesel, the 4 cyl D9900, in the Caterpillar Sixty. Diesel trucks were very rare, and the first commercial diesel trucks did not appear in the U.S. until 1934. The British started producing diesel trucks and buses from around 1934.

Clessie Cummins, in the early 1930's, was still fooling with trying to get an automotive diesel engine, light enough, and workable enough, to install in trucks. The Europeans had some diesels in trucks, in the mid 1920's to the early 1930's .. but they were in relatively small numbers.

Diesel fuel in the era up to 1931, came as an unregulated by-product of gasoline refining .. thus it could come in a variety of viscosities, a variety of contaminants, and a big variety of volatile constituents.
In 1931, the ASTM (American Society for Testing Materials), the SAE (Society of Automotive Engineers), and the API (American Petroleum Institute), set up Diesel Fuel standard ASTM D975 .. to define, precisely, the various compounds content, the viscosity, the cetane rating, the flashpoint, and the pour point, of Diesel Fuel.
This was a very important step in setting a Diesel Fuel standard .. where none previously existed .. and where, previously, unscrupulous fuel sellers could sell you anything, and call it Diesel.

At the same time (June 5, 1931 to be precise), California enacted the severe and comprehensive "California Fuel Substitution Act".
This all-encompassing Act was produced in concert with the SAE and API, and was designed to reign in unscrupulous fuel companies and fuel retailers .. with a huge raft of regulations and restrictions on what oils and fuels could be called .. how they could be advertised .. how they were to be marked. The Act was a major step in setting oil and fuel standards, labelling, testing methods .. and in setting advertising and pricing requirements. The Act was strengthened continuously over the decades.

Diesel fuel only started being used in modest quantities in America in the late 1930's. Despite Cummins producing small stationary diesel engines from the early 1920's, and producing its first commercial truck diesel engine in 1934, Cummins only recorded its first profit in 1937.
It was lucky that Clessie Cummins was supported by a banking family from 1919 .. which family had poured over $2M into Cummins by the mid 1930's, without seeing any return. He would have been declared bankrupt by the mid 1920's otherwise.

At the commencement of WW2, the U.S. military leaders deemed that gasoline was to be the primary fuel of the U.S. military .. thus diesel took a serious back seat during WW2. The only diesel required was for the GM diesels in the landing craft, for the GM diesels in Allis Chalmers crawlers, and for the Diesel Caterpillars. There were still a sizeable percentage of gasoline-powered Caterpillars produced during WW2.

In Australia, diesel was virtually unknown in 1934, and would have been difficult to source. There were only a handful of diesel Cats in Australia, no diesel trucks, and only a few hundred diesel stationary engines. Diesel would have been classed as a specialised fuel, and would only have been stocked by a few fuel distributors. If you wanted diesel fuel in Australia in 1934, you would have had to make arrangements with your fuel distributor to get supplies in.
It wasn't available in bulk, except for shipping, at ports .. and it would have been delivered in 44 imp gallon drums. It was also available in 3 grades .. automotive diesel, the less-refined No 2 fuel oil, and fuel oil.

The fuel most commonly used in Australia in 1934, was petrol .. mostly supplied in 4 imp gallon tins .. and available in bulk from those service stations, that had installed the hand-pumped bowsers, with the big glass bowl at the top.

The other primary fuel in Australia at that time was Power Kerosene. This was the preferred fuel of tractor owners. Power Kerosene was a special blend of kerosene that had more volatile constituents and a higher octane rating than lighting kerosene, which enabled it to be burnt in petrol engines.
You needed a re-jetted carburettor and heated manifold to be able to burn Power Kero satisfactorily. Engines run on Power Kero needed to be started on petrol and shut down on petrol, to avoid starting, and crankcase oil dilution problems.

Diesel fuel prices .. and in fact, all fuel prices .. in Australia would have been much higher than the U.S., in the same period. Mostly, Australian fuel prices have historically been at levels of 150% to 200% of U.S. fuel prices, at any particular period.

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14 years 2 months ago #4767 by wouldyou
There were single cylinder hot bulb 2 stroke tractors. Lanz from the late 20's, later on McDonalds and HSCS which used crude oil, it was sold by the ton. Caterpillar owners also used it having the drums settle and leaving a bit in the bottom. David.

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