These cars were probably made as an IVES Promotion sometime during the 1927-28 period. The Tomato Soup car and others were shown in a 1929 IVES MINIATURE RAILWAY NEWS under an article called "Diner is Served Via Ives Trains". It documented a special diner held for the sons of railroad engineers where 12 boys were seated at a big table with track running from the kitchen  to an oval of track around the table. Each boy had a semiphore (spelling from paper) that he would set when he wanted the food train to stop at his place. According to the article different freight cars were used to serve different courses, until the "ice cream, nuts, and raisins". The article actually showed the tank car below dispensing soup to a bowl and a line of Coke cars and what would appear to be a couple hoppers loaded with something edible. According to the article there were 12 of these tank cars that obviously had to be specially painted and fitted with a working valve. We've never seen any hopper or coke cars that would appear to have been made for this special diner.

Above and below are pictured two examples that have survived of the soup tank car Note the 'IRL' (IVES Railway Lines) lettering the added soup valve and the fact that both tanks are minus caps - we assume so that the cook could put the soup into the tank. There are a few reproductions of these cars floating around.

This one is reported to be a prototype or a least a regular tank car painted up in the Tomato Soup colors. It has no spout and the cap is not removeable, we've seen a couple of these and they just look too good to be true. We suspect these were made in the 1990s.

It is possible that this car carried Ice Cream for the same dinner?? This car was reported to have come from the family of a former IVES employee. besides for the soup cars above this is the only other car we've ever seen with the I.R.L. lettering. The originality of this car has come into question as at least two examples of this car have been located that were manufactured in the 1990s.