Good choice, Tom, and a nice car too. Here's a reworked Athearn car, rebuilt to ressemble the CNR's first lot of 8 hatch, overhead ice bunker cars. The doors are redone to more closely match the prototype, using Grandt Line door hardware, and the roof is scratchbuilt, except for the modified Athearn hatches. The underslung charcoal heater is built-up from styrene bits and brass wire, and the car features a reasonably complete AB brake system. Wire grabs and steps all around, and the sidesills were revised to reflect the prototype. Floquil paint and C-D-S lettering.
Nice car, chessie4155, but that's a plugdoor boxcar, possibly insulated, but not a reefer.
Here are a couple (well, one-and-a-half ) ice service reefers (used solely for moving ice from storage to local icehouses), built from LifeLike (Proto-No-Thousand) 36' wooden reefers. The cast-on grabs were replaced with either ladders or metal grabs, and the sill steps replaced with metal ones. Brake gear added to the underbodies, with paint by Floquil and custom lettering from C-D-S. I hope to redo the roofs to allow for free-standing roofwalks and to eliminate the ice hatches (the ice bunkers would have been removed to allow more floorspace inside the car).
NMRA printed the sides of this reefer on a cardboard inlay in its Bulletin and started a scratchbuilder's contest. This was my entry in N scale.
(Why a reefer? I believe that the basic tongue-in-cheek idea was: The NMRA Bulletin is such a hot paper that you have to transport it in reefers instead of boxcars. )
This one, one of about a dozen, is a simple makeover of an Athearn car. Metal steps and grabs, plus reworked ice hatches, along with a thinned running board. Paint is from Floquil, although the colour is a custom mix: this is the second or third repaint of these cars. The large EG&E and the car number are from large Letraset sheets, no longer made in these typefaces. The dimensional data is from a C-D-S set, and the herald and slogan is from my first order of custom lettering, also from C-D-S. Most of these cars have their original trucks and wheels: 8913 looks like it's sporting the sprung version.
WOW you guys are master modelers..Those are some awsum freight cars. Your attention to detail is excellent and some are from just plain jane cars. Keep up the excellent work.
Here's another one of mine.
Nice work on your reefers, guys. Chessie4155, those 57'ers were among my favourites back when I had a lot of equipment for the mid-'70s.:thumb: Eric, I somehow missed your post: very nice job on your reefer, and welcome to the Gauge. Ron, I wasn't aware of those NMRA cars, only of the plastic ones that came later. Nice work. Tom, those decals were a neat find and illustrate why that's the first place I look when I go to a hobbyshop. Here's my offering for today, a PFE reefer from Intermountain. The kit was built pretty much as intended, although the plastic grabs and steps were replaced with metal parts.
This CPR reefer parked at Finlay Fresh Fish is from Accurail. Wire steps and grabs, basic underbody brake gear, and paint by Floquil, with C-D-S lettering.
Nice pics guys.
But you can't model a modern railroad, unless you have a couple of these beauties on your roster. Cryo Reefers, from Walthers. I don't think they make them anymore.
Below is an AHM(Roco) refer I bought back in the mid-70s when I was in Junior High School. The only modifications are body mounted Kadee couplers, Accurail trucks, Kadee metal wheel sets and additional weight. It's lacking in detail and accuracy compared to modern models but it has sentimental value and soldiers on in service. (Although, I've given it to my younger son since I replaced it with a Branchline version of the Borden's car.)