I acquired 2 undecorated Accurail plug door steel reefer last winter for ktibashing purpose. Finally, they weren't suitable for my project so I decided to turn them into SP/UP R-40-26 reefers. I followed Tony Thompson and Arved Grass' tutorial, but in a more simplified manner since I'm not specifically modelling a PFE fleet.

http://arvedgrass.com/pacific-fruit-expr...26-part-i/

I relocated and made new tack boards, added door stops, Preco fans (made out of protuding styrene sprue), new A-Line stirrups and roofwalk brackets. Accurail was nice enough to make a pattern inside the sheel to cut the sill tabs.



Decals are Microscale, paint is a Red Oxyde spray can primer and orange is a homemade mix of Citadel "Fire Dragon Bright" and "Sunburst Yellow"!!!! Not a perfect match but still far better than Accurail own rendition! They are lighter in real life. With the weathering, it should make things look better. It was a straight forward project making quickly distinctive and attractive cars.



I must admit I'm getting hooked to new Accurail offerings. The part break up of this car makes it a dream to paint and decal without having to do one side and wait for the other. I hope they will continue to upgrade their line of kits and add new prototype. Talking about Accurail, 4 more QRL&PCo gondolas are almost completed and 3 BiL's tribute cars are 50% decalled.

Matt

I agree on Accurail. One issue is that my own LHS (admittedly a high-end place with lots of brass) has pretty much discontinued stocking Accurail simply because the markup on an Accurail kit at $14-15 isn't going to be the same as the markup on an Intermountain or whatever at $30-35, when they both take up the same shelf space. But the Intermountain has assembly errors (I've found warped parts, missing roof walks, etc routinely), and ladders and other details tend to fall off the more detailed cars when they're on the layout.

There are several upsides to Accurail, though. First, as you show, there's a lot of room for paint improvements and other such creativity. This gives you the leeway to spend a reasonable amount of time on freight cars, while beng able to spend time on the overall layout picture as well. There are several regular guys who post on their layouts here, like Mr Nutbar, Dr Wayne, Sven, Len Turner, and so forth, who clearly benefit from this approach. You did a great job on those reefers!

Those are nice looking reefers and my favorite type of PFE reefer. :tada

The AccuRail kits are nice and I'm happy to hear of the improvements.

To be honest I will be buying several of their "data only" cars in the near future.

Thanks guy! PFE reefers have a "je ne sais quoi" that makes them attractive. Their paint scheme never looks outdated to me.

jwb Wrote:I agree on Accurail. One issue is that my own LHS (admittedly a high-end place with lots of brass) has pretty much discontinued stocking Accurail simply because the markup on an Accurail kit at $14-15 isn't going to be the same as the markup on an Intermountain or whatever at $30-35, when they both take up the same shelf space. But the Intermountain has assembly errors (I've found warped parts, missing roof walks, etc routinely), and ladders and other details tend to fall off the more detailed cars when they're on the layout.

A layout is a benchmark for real model. If it can sustain normal operation, it failed!

When my income raised, my first move was to get higher end models I drooled over for years. Just to be unsatisfied. When you pay 30$ and more for a car, you are less forgiving to errors. On a 12-15$ car, you expect them and live with them. Accurail cars are good enough out of the box and you can improve them according to your time, money and exigence. I only buy Intermountain unpainted kit at 10$ each. I feel it's a good deal. The same with my steamers, I enjoy the models I paid under 100$ and put life to them. I don't have this kind of feeling toward a 300$-400$ model.

Matt