So I've seen now multiple references to the "difficulties" in building the vinegar tank car kit from Sunshine.
While it is indeed not a first timer kit, nor is it a simple kit, I feel that it is unfairly getting a reputation as a massively difficult kit. I've now built 3 of them and between reading Bill Darnaby's suggested building process and just plain thinking it through, 3 rather nice cars have resulted. If you approach the task logically it's really not that difficult.
And I can further state without hesitation, that there are other resin kits out there that are far worse and very badly thought out by the kit maker.
I guess, I'm asking/suggesting that we reconsider "bashing " the vinegar tank car kit.
Pierre Oliver
www.elgincarshops.com

--- In STMFC@..., "Schuyler Larrabee" <schuyler.larrabee@...> wrote:

I believe our own Denny Anspach is a veteran of the wars required to build
one of the Sunshine cars.



SGL



If you look on Al's website you will find that Al produced a number of
pickle cars, but no vinegar cars. The Vinegar car that Sunshine produced is
so complex that even Ted Culotta had a time building it. He did a great job
with it, but it is not a kit for the newbie to build nor for the faint
hearted.

Tom Olsen
Newark, Delaware, 19711





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I believe our own Denny Anspach is a veteran of the wars required to build
one of the Sunshine cars.



SGL



If you look on Al's website you will find that Al produced a number of
pickle cars, but no vinegar cars. The Vinegar car that Sunshine produced is
so complex that even Ted Culotta had a time building it. He did a great job
with it, but it is not a kit for the newbie to build nor for the faint
hearted.

Tom Olsen
Newark, Delaware, 19711





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[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

The MRHA Hormel cars are from the series built in 1940 and are in the post 1953 paint scheme. Multiple car numbers are available via overlay decals.

John Greedy

--- In STMFC@..., "np328" <jcdworkingonthenp@> wrote:

John, of the MRHA cars, what years are they accurate for?
Build date being most important. Photos on the website are rather small to read any data. Thanks, Jim Dick - St. Paul

--- In STMFC@..., "sctry" <JGreedy@> wrote:

Time to start thinking about Cocoa Beach. There is still time to build those Hormel cars from the 2011 Shake-N-Take. If you need decals they are still available from 5th Avenue Car Shops. See the Shake-N-Take YahooGroups web site for details (decal orders and Hormel how-to instructions).

An alternate approach for the Hormel cars is to begin with a prepainted and lettered car. Check out the Milwaukee Road Historical Association web site (www.mrha.com) "Company Store" for fully decorated Hormel cars.

Hope to see many Hormel cars at ProtRails 2012. I have 3 cars completed and several more nearing completion on my work bench (early scheme with original board roof, early scheme with outside metal roof, later scheme with outside metal roof).

John Greedy

Operationally speaking, Vinegar production in the steam era was usually
associated with Yeast production, vinegar being a byproduct. So if you know
of a Fleishman or in later years, Standard Brand's yeast factory (there was
one in East Oakland, CA), odds are good they also shipped vinegar. Yeast
may not seem like much of a product, but every large bread bakery needed
plenty and so the bigger the city, the better the odds a Standard Brands
yeast plant was near. As for vinegar consumption, it wasn't just for
pickling cucumbers -- making Catsup calls for plenty too.

Dave Nelson

-----Original Message-----
John,

If you look on Al's website you will find that Al produced a number of
pickle cars, but no vinegar cars. The Vinegar car that Sunshine produced is
so complex that even Ted Culotta had a time building it. He did a great job
with it, but it is not a kit for the newbie to build nor for the faint
hearted.

Tom Olsen
Newark, Delaware, 19711

The IM model is based on the ACF design. On the version of the
prototype car that IM produces, one distinguishing difference is the
locking bar arrangement. The ACF design had a single L-shaped rod that
held each hatch cover in the closed position. Cars built by
Pullman-Standard and GATC had two of these L-shaped rods per hatch.

I'm not positive buy IM might have developed a second locking bar
arrangement for P-S and GATC cars since they were so prevalent.

The 10 M&StL cars built in 1940 by GATC were discussed in a Mainline
Modeler article (July 1993). A drawing is provided but no photos.
Builder's photos of 70051 from series 70051-70069 (odd) show the cars
were painted black. Stencils were probably white but could also be
aluminum. They had two L-shaped rods per hatch, the middle section of
the sides were open, Apex running boards, Equipco hand brakes, and
70-ton double-truss spring-plankless trucks.

Regards,
Ed Hawkins

Gentlemen

While we are on the subject of wooden vinegar cars, does anyone have any details of the prototype history etc of the Northeastern vinegar tank car kit. I've got one and will eventually get around to building it.

I've got a museum photo of one that is similar but would be interested to know how accurate the kit is and any history of potential prototypes.

Barry Bennett

I recently saw a photo in a magazine of a Lehigh Valley 19000 series ribbed offset-side hopper that had its end number painted in a black diamond. It was car number 19000. Did any other roads use their herald on the end of their cars?

Francis A. Pehowic, Jr.
Sunbury, Pa.

John - Virtually everything we've ever made except for limited runs and cars removed because they weren't accurate enough are on the web site. We did not make a vinegar tank car. - Al Westerfield

----- Original Message -----
From: boyds1949
To: stmfc@...
Sent: Monday, August 29, 2011 2:24 PM
Subject: [STMFC] Westerfield Kits - Heinz Vinegar Tank



Is there a complete list of Westerfield kits online? Al's websites list the kits that were available at the time he stopped selling but I am wondering if there were kits that were produced early on and discontinued and are not listed.

I was visiting a layout last week and there was a excellent model of Heinz 204 which he identified as being built from a Westerfield kit. I don't remember ever seeing this model on his lists.

Thanks in advance.

John King