Beer & Pickles

A well disguised F&M Schaefer Brewery

I was reviewing the instructions on how to build the Perry Schibbel Fruit & Co-Op in Art Curren's book Kitbashed HO Model Railroad Structures, and found that the table in the back listing kit substitutions that could be used for the various projects noted Model Power 's Heinz Pickle Factory, kit #465, could be substituted for AHM's F&M Schaefer Brewery, the E. L. Moore designed kit that the kitbash is based on. The only difference being that the pickle factory has wood sides, not brick as does the brewery. 

Left: Pickle Factory; Right: Brewery

Martin generously sent me a photo of the pickle factory's walls, and when compared to the brewery walls in my Model Power repop, well, you can see the basic shapes are indeed the same. Ok, one has square openings, and the other has arched, but Mr. Curren was right, you could no doubt build a wooden version of Schibbel's. The pickle factory is just a 'wooden' version of the brewery.

As with many of these kit buildings a few other manufacturers sold this pickle factory. There's a Pola version and a Lionel, and probably others, but the key thing is that this is yet again another kit that can be traced back to E. L. Moore.