Above are two photos of my four Accurail Vesuvius Crucible Co.
boxcars. Vesuvius Crucible was a company in Paw Paw, WV, on
the East End, that made crucibles for holding molten metal.
They had rail access off a small spur near Paw Paw tunnel. The
company owned ten 40' boxcars (VCBX 1004-13), none of which were
lettered for the Paw Paw facility. All are lettered for their
Swissvale, PA location, though they routinely went to Paw Paw.
Luckily, Accurail made a model of VCBX 1013. I bought four of
them and reunumbered the cars to 1013, 1012, 1004 and 1005 (left to
right in photo above). I added the ACI card in the prototype
location and the wheel inspection dot on three of the four.
These cars are perfect for East End interchange traffic, as they
would come an go to an online industry and require using their own
fleet of boxcars. I painted the inside of each shell and the
bottom of the car flat black, so they do not appear
translucent. I weathered each with pastels, to show some road
grime. I also replaced the Accurail friction pins with self
tapping screws to hold the trucks on.
