There have been a couple of interesting threads lately on perishable traffic and Accurail PFE reefers, and I thought I'd post on some recent and not so recent projects, but rather than hijack either of those good threads, I thought I'd start my own.

As Matt and others have noted, the Accurail steel sided cars are quite good, but I thought I'd start with some things I did when I had some time in the 1990s. Tony Thompson in his original RMC series on modeling PFE reefers pointed out that the Mantua/Tyco plastic reefer could be fixed up to resemble one series of PFE rebuilt cars, and Robert Smaus then took that about three steps farther, bashing the Tyco sides onto a Tichy underframe with new ends and roof. I wound up steering a middle course, leaving the Tyco body as is, but using the Tichy PFE underframe, which is available separately. I did a bunch.[attachment=12084]They were fairly inexpensive as these things go -- I was getting old Tyco reefers at swap meets for maybe $3 apiece, and counting the Tichy underframes, trucks, couplers, details, and decals, they ran me maybe $10-12 total each. All old freight cars are now more expensive at swaps.

Then some guy at another swap unloaded a dozen or so Athearn 40-foot underframes, so I did some more Tyco kitbashing. Here's what's probably the last one of these I'm ever going to do:[attachment=12083]Styrene floor, Athearn underframe, Details West brake gear, A-Line weights. This got me a more generic car, and I used photos in various all-color books, combined with the Micro Scale MDT reefer set. I make no claim that the details on these cars follow prototypes very closely, but they work as layout models. Here's one of these more generic ones that I finished:[attachment=12082]

You have to scrounge to dig up Walthers General American cars, with the horizontal rivet joint across the sides, but they're actually quite good, especially considering the die work is 20 years old or more:[attachment=12081]It's a shame Walthers is bringing them in now only as RTR, overpriced for what they are, but I've either found them cheaper as old stock in stores here and there, or got one or two like this one that Walthers was clearing out on their web site. I'd love to find some in ART orange.

Here's an Accurail.[attachment=12080]After I got this, I began to wonder if the Milwaukee/URTX cars were all General American with horizontal rivet rows, but I don't have enough information to know for sure at this point. Frankly, if it's wrong, I'm not too bent out of shape about it.

Another example of an undecorated Accurail steel reefer that Doctor Wayne created for me

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Nice cars JWB! And your yellow is so much better than mine!

I'm often surprised how many cheap old cars can be turn in great looking layout model. When I get my hands on old stuff, I often make a quick search to find what prototype Tyco, Walthers, name it, used. Most of the time a talented guy, like Thompson, did the job and I just have to step in the band wagon. Have you ever worked on the Varney wood reefer? I read an old article recently about turning it into a Swift classic meat reefer.

Matt

Cheap Tycos are among my biggest search items when I go to swaps. Maybe I'll start a thread on swap meet treasures! But since you mention Varneys, here's a shot of one I found at a swap:[attachment=12089]It was too far gone to do much with, and although the core is wood, the sides are printed cardboard, and they were pretty far gone, too. After I took the photo to document it, I tore everything off the core and will eventually just add weight and scribed wood and more or less start over. I have a couple of Varney cores that I intend to do this with. They had a Green Bay and Western reefer that actually had the unique GBW chassis, but again, the cardboard sides were too much to try to restore on the one I have. If I can find decals for the white GBW reefers, I'd start over again with that one, too. Given the costs and what people were willing to pay at the time, I have a lot of respect for pre-WWII HO. Actually, note that the yellow on this Varney car is correct for PFE in earlier years, too. If it had been in better shape, I'd have kept it the way it was.

One thing to keep in mind with PFE is that if you look at color shots of reefer blocks, pretty much no two cars are the same shade. There are at least some tunnels on most routes out of California, and that means the cars are covered with soot on nearly every trip. The recommended PFE orange I've seen and used most often is SP Daylight Orange. I've used both Scalecoat and Floquil.

jwb Wrote:One thing to keep in mind with PFE is that if you look at color shots of reefer blocks, pretty much no two cars are the same shade. There are at least some tunnels on most routes out of California, and that means the cars are covered with soot on nearly every trip. The recommended PFE orange I've seen and used most often is SP Daylight Orange. I've used both Scalecoat and Floquil.

Very interesting old models... Would it be simpler to just duplicate them and keep the original as a collecting item that testify for older technic? (my collector side speaking there).

Good to hear about the color... My cars will probably received a share of dusting and sooting to make them appear better. South sun was probably aging the color a lot too.

Matt

From my point of view, these cars are simply too far gone to justify keeping them as historical items. Notice the Varney PFE car, hatches, platforms, and roofwalk mostly missing, roof ribs badly assembled, poor paint. I've at least half-heartedly tried to restore some cars (like Athearn metal) where I had enough hangar queens to come up with a full set of parts, but not with these Varneys. They're pretty much junk pure and simple! If I thought my mission was running a museum, I might take a different approach, but then I'd probably be looking more carefully all the time for replacement parts, etc.

If you think about it, there are certainly collectors who go for every last variation on every plastic Mantua/Tyco reefer from the 1950s and 60s. That's not me, I get those bodies cheap and strip em. I'm not running a museum; there are other guys who do!

Those old Varney reefers was barely acceptable to the majority of the modelers back in the day since there was better reefers available.

Ok! I thought they were slightly in better shape!! Then I'm totally on your side about the rebuild program!

Matt

Here's an old LifeLike (Proto-no-thousand) 36' reefer. I scraped off the cast-on grabirons and replaced them with metal parts, but should have replaced the roof, too as this car is in ice-service, and would likely have had its bunkers and hatches removed. My story is that the bunkers have been removed and the hatches sealed, a not-uncommon situation.




Here's another Tyco reefer, not much changed except for the new metal grabirions and sill steps:




The EG&E's standard wood reefers are slightly modified Accurail cars - I added Tichy hatches and hatch platforms:




This Intermountain car was factory-painted for the 1950's paint scheme, but since it's similar to that used in the '20s and '30s, I simply altered the BLT date:




This is an Athearn car with a few added details. Lettering is from Champ:




Another Athearn car, although I've replaced the steel ends with wood ones, and replaced the roof with a scratch-built older style one:




An Athearn steel car with a few added details. Lettering is from Champ:




This one is from Red caboose, again with Champ decals:




Tichy:




Another Athearn car, with Champ decals:




An Intermountain car - the factory paint scheme is too modern for my era, and needs to be re-painted and re-lettered:




A re-worked MDC 36'-er:




Here's an Athearn wood reefer with the steel ends replaced with wood ones and a back-dated roof. The hatches and platforms are from Tichy and lettering is C-D-S dry transfers:




Another re-worked Athearn car, although technically not a reefer, as its roof hatches and ice bunkers have been removed. It operates as an insulated car and is usually assigned to fish-service, where the cargo is simply top-iced for a quick trip to market:




...and finally, a re-worked Athearn steel reefer. This one represents a car from CNR's first order for overhead ice bunker reefers, and just barely squeezes into my late '30s era with an October 1939 BLT date:



These, and subsequent orders, were the apex of ice-cooled reefer technology:



Wayne

Your CNR 8-hatch reefers are real beauty. From vintage pictures I found, Quebec City harbour was litterally filled with several dozen of these cars. Did it need a lot of work to bash the athearn classic metal reefer?

BTW, your NYC reefer weathering is simply gorgeous. Probably one of your best job on a steel car, inspiring.

Matt

Thanks for your kind words on the NYC reefer, Matt. The car was originally weathered much more heavily and I simply wiped it vertically with a cloth soaked in methyl hydrate as a sort of last ditch effort to get a less-weathered appearance. I then lightly airbrushed the panel seams. The original weathering job was similar to what's along the bottom of the sill - much too heavy for what would be a fairly new car in the late '30s.
If the wiping hadn't worked, it would have been completely stripped and re-painted.

The CNR eight hatch car required the door area to be re-built, as it's wider and a slightly different height than the Athearn door. The door hardware is from Grandt Line. I also cut the ends from the Athearn roof and cemented them in place on the floor/side casting. The new roof was built-up using sheet styrene and Plastruct "T", while the hatches are modified Athearn parts. These early cars had wood roof walks, which I simulated with strip styrene.
The steel weight was secured inside the car, then the underbody was built-up to fill the resultant gap between the bottom of the floor and the centre sill. I then added the brake components and basic rigging, but skipped the piping, as it would be visible only in the event of a major derailment.
The underfloor heater was built-up using a short section of Evergreen square plastic tubing as the main box, with brass strip supports and wire piping.

Wayne

Impressive job on those, Dr Wayne!

Here are some more of mine. This is an Athearn blue-box, upgraded with some paint improvements and the Details West fan and tackboard kit, along with the underframe improvements you discuss as well.[attachment=12097][attachment=12096]

Here's a Red Caboose PFE car:[attachment=12095]
Here's another recent Accurail:[attachment=12094]
Here's a pure scenery item, an Accurail wood body reefer relettered with a decal set from Bollinger Edgerly to duplicate some cars that were in ice storage at North Station Boston. I replaced the roof with scribed styrene.[attachment=12093]As I say, I don't focus on a single region, era, or prototype, so I've got no problem with Santa Fe equipment running past this at my station throat.

Love those reefers---here's a couple more of Doctor Wayne's creations that ended up on the Leetown Division