I'm finishing up a conversion of a Rivarossi Santa Fe style steam engine into an ACL Q-1. I read in Prince's book that the ACL converted several tank cars into water tenders for these engines. Does anyone remember how the railroad lettered these tank cars. Did they have the round herald like the Q-1's tender or was the name written out or just the initials used. If the name was written out, was in positioned below the center line like the other M.O.W. tanks? A photo would be great!

-- Dave George (deg835@earthlink.net), November 28, 2003

Answers

As Buddy indicates, the water bottles resembled ACL MofW tankcars in appearance and lettering. I have a reasonably clear photo of one somewhere, and if I can locate it and get a good scan, I'll forward that to you separately. Also I have somewhere some of the numbers for these cars - as I recall they were in the 66000 series as were ACL's other company tank cars.

-- Larry Goolsby (lgoolsby@aphsa.org), December 01, 2003.

Dave,

Glad to hear someone else is intersted in modeling ACL steam - there doesn't seem to be too many of us around. I'm sorry to say I do not know of any photos of the "water bottles" other than photos that show them in the background coupled behind the Q-1 and tender. Here's to hoping a clear photograph will turn up someday.

In regard to how they were lettered, I've traded emails regarding the water bottles with society member Mr. Bill Sellers who formerly fired for the ACL. His reply discussing the tank cars is as follows:

"....I am going to defer on your question about the water bottles on the Santa Fe type 2-10-2's. I didn't fire enough of them to be familiar with the set-up in detail All I remember seeing was one flexible connection between the tanks with a cut-off valve on both tanks. The tanks were letterd as ACL equipment with a series of numbers that were likely carried under M of Way Dept. I do know the cut levers on both tanks were locked into position in some way to prevent a trainman from accidently uncoupling the two tanks...."

If you have a copy of Bill Griffin's ACL book (available from the society), there is a photo of an ACL MW tank car inside to give you an idea of ACL MW painting practices.

If I recall correctly, detailed information in the ACL condenced equipment rosters is pretty lacking regarding MW equipment so other than finding the number series, there is no way to know which specific tank cars were assigned to water bottle service.

Not sure which commercially available tank car model would best represent the ACL water bottles - I'll dig further to see what I can find. I do know that a model of the tank car shown in the referenced Griffin ACL book is not commercially available (yet). Hope this is of some use to you.

-- Buddy Hill (palmettoLTD@hotmail.com), November 29, 2003.