SLC Mechanical Reefers

[Russ Bellinis]

Gary, I'm wondering if the Milwaukee Road bought the same model of cars from the same manufacturer as the Santa Fe? do you notice any spotting differences between the cars from the two roads?

[Gary S]

Russ, there are differences between the MR and the SF cars. The ex-SF (SLC 120 - 140) cars have angled ribs on each side of the door. The MR cars (SLC 141 - 199) have all straight ribs:

   

   

On the ex-SF cars, there are differences between them. The placement of the big Santa Fe cross emblem is located slightly different on some of the cars, and on the right, some have "Santa Fe" in big letters (painted over) while some have the "Ship and Travel Santa Fe All the Way" logo in smaller letters, with the Santa Fe painted over.

   

   

   

Some of the Ex-SF cars and some of the MR cars have been painted completely yellow. I have noticed that the SLC is quite adamant about painting over graffiti. I'll see a car here in Houston with some graffiti, then a month later, I'll see the same car with the graffiti painted over in an ugly pink paint. I wonder if at some point, the SLC painted all yellow over cars that had major graffiti?

   

Some of the MR cars are also painted all yellow, but have "PEAVINE' in a small rectangle on the left side. Perhaps these are not even MR cars?

   

[Russ Bellinis]

I don't remember for sure, but I think I heard of Peavine as a Santa Fe place name in some of the articles in my Warbonnet magazines from the Santa Fe Modelers & Historical Society. If I remember correctly from a few pages back, you put in a bunch of those ribs if not all of them yourself, didn't you? If so, you could make a few MR cars just by changing those ribs on either side of the doors easily enough. Of course if you have already finished all oof those cars as ex Santa Fe, that may be more work than you even want to think about!

[Gary S]

I actually am doing 12 of the ex-SF cars and 15 of the ex-MR cars. The top car in the photo below is the MR car, made from an Athearn BB #1624 rivet side reefers with the ribs added at the rivet lines. Also had to cut the original small doors out and replace them with Accurail plug doors.

The ex-SF cars are made from Athearn BB #1631 outside braced reefers, these already had the angled ribs. This is the bottom car in the photo. These prototype cars also have oval shaped fuel tanks rather than the rectangular ones on the MR car, so I fabricated those.

   

[Gary S]

Another note: Each car has 7 stirrups, and 27 cars equals 189 hand-bent wire stirrups. And 2 holes drilled per stirrup is 378 holes! If I add in all the holes for the brake rigging and fuel tanks, there are 48 holes per car, equals 1,296 holes drilled! hock:

[P5se Camelback]

:o hock: hock: hock: hock: hock: hock: hock: hock: hock: hock: 8-)

Ah! The joys of mass production!

[nachoman]

are the stirrups brass or plastic?

[Gary S]

Kevin, they are .015 music wire bent with needle-nose pliers. They are a bit crude, but good enough for the "three foot rule".

[Russ Bellinis]

They don't look crude in the pictures, Gary.

[cnw1961]

Gary, you are the master of mass production. Even just thinking of all the holes you drilled makes me dizzy. And I agree with Russ, the stirrups don’t look crude.

[Gary S]

Time to get this up to date. Finished all 27 of the reefers, except for some very minor touch-up paint. For example, I noticed in the photo of SLC 133 below, I forgot to dirty up the white MTC marking on the door. These were all painted with craft paint and brush. For weathering, used thinned craft paint and weathering powders. One thing I discovered... for patches, it is much better to use colored decal trim film then painting. The ex-MR patches are decals, the ex-SF patches are craft paint. The decal film makes a big difference.

First, all 27 of these things lined up at Hobby Industrial Park on the layout. I routinely see all of the variations at the Mountain King plant right down the street from where I work. I did work form the proto photos of the various cars.... but didn't strive to make the models exactly like the real thing, just close enough. For comparison, there are prototype photos on previous posts of this thread.

   

One of ten of the ex-MR reefers

   

I think these are ex-MR cars but have been painted all yellow, perhaps after some major graffiti. The SLC appears to be adamant about keeping their cars graffiti free. I did 5 of these.

   

These are ex-ATSF reefers, with the "Ship and Travel Santa Fe All the Way" logo. Did 4 of these

   

Did 3 of these ex-AFSF with the large "Santa Fe" on the side

   

Did 2 of this ex-ATSF variation, which seems rather rare, only saw this paint scheme a couple of times.

   

And did 3 of these, apparently ex-ATSF bu painted all yellow.

[Justinmiller171]

Where are the pictures of the Reefers you made?

All I see are prototype photos

[Gary S]

Thanks Justin. I must admit, the photos of 167 and 198 are fairly convincing. And the whole batch of cars look darned good going around the layout. This project only took ten months to complete!

[faraway]

That is a great and long train! I wish I ........ (stop dreaming) You did do a new building in the background too.

[SP1]

You did a great job! And 10 month is a rather short period... in my thinking.