I can answer a few of Lynn Finch's questions, but don't know of any
photos.

The "VT feed store" he has heard about was a "For-All Store",
located in South Ryegate, in a dairy region on the Montpelier & Wells
River some half-dozen miles west of the B&M/CP Connecticut River main
line. A few years ago, as part of an oral history project, a friend
and I interviewed "Andy", a now-retired farmer who worked there in the
late 30's as a teenager.
Andy told us that back then, feeds were quite commonly mixed to
order, and molasses was a frequent component. Understandably,
however, no Depression-era Vermonter would use store-bought feed when
his own pastures were green, so most feed sales occurred during the
winter months - when the overnight temperatures often reached -30 F.
To keep the molasses manageably fluid, it was stored underground, in
the recycled body of an 8,000-gallon tank car. (You probably couldn't
do that today - I have no idea how they cleaned residual oil out of it
before its first load of molasses.)
When For-All needed more molasses, it came up from Boston via the
Concord-Plymouth line. By the time it got to Woodsville, of course,
it was pretty solid - so the tank car was spotted next to the
Woodsville roundhouse for 24 hours or so, with its heating coils
connected to a steam line. The next morning, the M&WR hauled it out
to South Ryegate, where simple gravity was now sufficient to refill
the store's tank. I don't know if portions of a single tankcar load
were delivered to other customers, but I tend to doubt it would have
been practical.

After WWII, that feed store changed hands a few times. Eventually,
the building was demolished, and its 8000-gallon tank was sold to a
fuel-oil dealer, who returned it to its original use - sort of. They
set the tank up on steel legs in Bradford, VT, and it was still there
the last time I looked.

I have no idea how much of this story can be generalized to NYO&W
territory, but it may give some sense of what problems had to be dealt
with - along with the unlikelihood that any two businesses solved them
exactly the same way.

If you do track down any photos, please let me know - So. Ryegate
will be a major focus of my (HO) layout, so I really need at least one
appropriately lettered tank car.

Irv Thomae
in Norwich, Vermont