Pickel Vat Car

Roy,

Recommend you take a look at your vat size.  If you make your vats 8 scale feet in diameter, then you should be able to fit 4 vats onto a 36 ' or 34' car.  use bands to control the size of your bands keeping the wood staves together for you vats.  I suspect your vats are larger than the 8' that were used.

Pickles

I 'guestimated' the vat measurements from an old photo with two guys standing next to the car... I guess those fellows were taller than average since my vat diameters came out at 7 1/2 feet.  I also misstated the length of my scratch built pickle car- it's a 25' flat not 36'.... like everything else, my touch typing skills have declined.  I've put in an order for 3 more such pickle cars to my car shop and they pulled 3 beat up logging flats out of service for the transformation.  If these 3 vat cars are 'originals' that will work on my RR.... but I'd still like to know if some short line somewhere had such rolling stock.

the other Roy        

Build what you need...

If they look good with three vats...BUILD EM!!!

Pickle cars

Some where I seen a pickle car that has the vats enclosed so that they do not show but otherwise looks similar to the run of the mill vat car.  Maybe a wood tank car to go along with the vat car would be a good idea as they need supplies to make pickles.

If it looks good and feels like it belongs to the layout have fun and build it your way.

Pickle Cars

In the December 2011 issue of Railroad Model Craftsman they have a great article on railroads and the pickle industry. It's on page 82 and they have real good photos of several industries and many photos of different pickle cars at different era.