AHM Vinegar Tank Car

[fishbelly]

I picked up two AHM vinegar Tank cars for $5.00 each. These are in stock brand new condition and nothing has been done to them yet. I do not think the wheels ever touched a track. They are in EXCELLENT condition.


These cars really do not represent ANY prototype. All the photos of vinegar tank cars show the tank sitting on saddles and not in a trough like the AHM cars here. I like these cars though and I will make the necessary modifications I think are needed to turn the cars into a fun project and produce something respectable to add to my train.



My plans are to replace the underframe with an Accurail frame. The Accurail frame fits really nice into the AHM cars. I only need to add about 0.030" strip styrene to each end to make it fit snug. These cars have no weight in them so I will get the cars up to a total weight of 4.5 ounces. That is NMRA + 10%. Trucks will be 50 ton Tahoe Model Works, Kadee couplers and AJAX brake wheel. I will also add a hatch to the top center of the car. I will strip the paint from the cars and repaint them in True Color Paint aluminum including the trucks. I have already finished the decal artwork and it is in the process of being printed by Highball Graphics. I referenced a few prototype cars to get the artwork and fonts. They will be lettered for SBIX (Standard Brands Inc.)

[bn7023]

My model (Milwaukee Vinegar Co.: my blog post) looked just like the prototype and was lucky. I only replaced the wheels and couplers. The only regret is that the car numbers are missing on both ends. What are you dissatisfied with the AHM models and repaint?


Quoted from page 281 of the Car Builders' Cyclopedia 1953 edition

[lvrr325]

I was about to say, there's probably a one or two off somewhere they found pictures of to base the car on.  Most AHM stuff this era seems to be based on pictures or articles that ran in MR or RMC.  For instance a lot of their structure kits are based on old scratchbuilder or kitbasher articles, I think they sent a copy of the magazine to Pola and said "can you make this" - 

IIRC the Vinegar tank is Roco, I could be wrong, a shot of the underframe would sort it out. 

[edwardsutorik]

I have the impression that the AHM cars were based on, or inspired by, the Car Builders Cyclopedia.

For example, the photo in a previous post.

I would be very surprised to see articles in modeling magazines about more than a couple of the AHM cars. The vinegar car could be one, as I think I recall that one.



Ed

[lvrr325]

RMC in particular used to fill space with random scale drawings of cars, locomotives, etc. I think if I sat down with a stack I could pick out a number of them which became actual stuff AHM imported. One giveaway is mistakes where both sides are the same because the drawing might only show one side.

[fishbelly]

BN7023 Thanks for posting the photo. I would never had guessed at this. I think I will try and find more photos of the Milwaukee Vinegar cars to get the artwork done. I like these cars better and as you pointed out. The AHM car was patterned after this.

So studying this photo, I can make out some things.

1. On the end of the car is stenciled TANK 2. This makes me think that there are two tank compartments. The other end being TANK 1. This makes sense because in other photos of vinegar tank cars (not this type of car), I have seen two hatches at the top of the car

2. The caption at the bottom of the photo gives all the load data. Looking at the sill on the other end of the car I can see three lines of text. Not readable of course. There are two rows and then a single row. My best guess is the two rows read CAPY on top, then LD LMT under that and then the single row is LT WT.

3. On the end of the sill to the right I see three rows of text. 
REPACKED
(?) 6-21-46
(?)

If I cannot figure out what the (?) letters are, I may have to wing it or change it to what AHM has on the car which is simply RPKD 3-21-64 TS

As far as I can tell from the AHM model of the MILWAUKEE VINEGAR car paint scheme I would paint the car as follows.
TRUCKS, FRAME, SILL and DECK: Brown
TANK ENDS: Brown
BILLBOARD SIGN: Silver with brown trim and blue letters
SILL LETTERING and TANK END LETTERING: White
TANK BODY: Aluminum paint

Again, thanks.