Tankers. Tankers left Gulf points for the Eastern seaboard at the rate of one every eighty minutes. Loading dock hoses like these serve a fleet of 300 vessels. An average tanker carries as much oil as 280 railroad tank cars, requiring four trains, four locomotives. Ships could haul oil for one cent a barrel as against necessary railroad rates of four cents. Low marine rates left no incentive for railroads or pipelines to equip themselves for transporting Eastern petroleum requirements