12-31-2010, 10:17 PM
Russ Bellinis Wrote:Actually what you are modeling is not the refrigeration unit. The refrigeration unit is all electric and mounted in the top half behind the upper screens. The unit on the lower half is a generator set powered by a Detroit Diesel 2-53 series engine. The reason for the sliding screen on the side is that the gen set slides out for maintenance. It can be slid out and hang over the side of the ballast for oil changes, or it can be slid out, unplugged, and picked up with a fork lift to r&r it for more exhaustive repairs. You are probably ok even if you modeled a reefer instead of a gen set. The only thing visible when the gen set is installed is the radiator for the diesel engine. The radiator is taller and wider than the diesel, and the generator on the end of the diesel is even smaller.
Randy Wrote:Key point - the louvers aren't missing on SLC 177 and SLC 146 - someone just forgot to slide them back in place. There's a track there, like a door track, to slide them back. Since the ladder has to come off to pull the generator, and there surely is some sort of fastening system on the 'skid' itself, it's not like it's going to go anywhere.
Cool stuff Russ and Randy, thanks for the info, and it makes sense. What I modeled was "just a bunch of scrap thrown together" to mimic what I saw behind the ladder. So, it can certainly be the generator. Mostly it is just the radiator grill.
I'm going to take a much closer look at those photos now. This is one of the reasons Big Blue is so great. Bound to be somebody that knows what's going on!
I went back and looked, Randy is exactly right. The cars don't have louvers over the generators, they have screens. Some of the cars have the screens in place which slightly obscures the generator, but on other cars, the screens are slid to the right out of place. Oh crud, now how do I model the screens?
It still amazes me how much I miss when looking at photos of the prototype.